
Class 


?5 1321 


Book .... • A\ 







LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 





PAGE 




paoh: 


Titian's Moses . Frontispiece 


Wounded . . . . 


47 


The Author's Memories 


xxvi 


Favourite Street Cos • 




The Black Knight 


. 3 


tume 


17 


Opening his Vizier . 


1 


Ineffaceable Scars . . 


18 


The Enraged Emperor 


5 


Piece of Sword . 


50 


The Portier 


. 7 


French Calm . . . . 


53 


One op those Boys 


8 


The Challenge accepted . 


51 


Schloss Hotel, Heidel 




A Search 


55 


BERG .... 


. 9 


He swooned ponder- 




In my Cage . 


. 11 


ously 


56 


Heidelberg Castle . 


. 13 


I ROLLED HIM OVER . 


56 


The Retreat . 


16 


The One I hired . . . 


58 


Heidelberg Castle, Eivei 




The March to the Field . 


59 


Frontage 


. 17 


The Post of Danger . . 


62 


Jim Baker . 


19 


The Reconciliation . 


63 


1 A Blue Flush about it ' 


23 


An Object of Admiration . 


61 


Couldn't see it . 


. 21 


Wagner .... 


66 


A Beer King. 


27 


Raging 


66 


The Lecturer's Audience 


28 


Roaring . 


67 


Industrious Students . 


29 


Shrieking . . . . 


67 


Idle Student 


29 


A Customary Thing . 


68 


Companionable Inter- 




One of the « Rest ' 


60 


course .... 


30 


A Contribution Box . 


69 


An Imposing Spectacle 


31 


Conspicuous . ... 


70 


An Advertisement 


32 


A Young Beauty 


71 


1 Understands his Busi- 




Only a Shriek . . . 


73 


ness ' . 


35 


'He only cry' . 


71 


The Old Surgeon 


36 


Late Comers cared for . 


76 


The First Wound. . . 


37 | 


Evidently dreaming 


77 


The Castle Court . 


41 | 


« Turn on more Rain ' 


79 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 





PAGE 




PAGB 


Harris attending the 




'He had to get up'. 


139 


Opera .... 


80 


Breakfast in the Gardes 


141 


Painting my Great Picture 


82 


Easily understood 


142 


Our Start . 


83 


Experimenting through 




An Unknown Costume . . 


84 


Harris .... 


145 


The Tower . 


85 


At the Ball Room Door 


147 


Slow but Sure . . . 


86 


Dilsberg 


150 


The Robber Chief . 


89 


Our Advance on Dilsberg 


150 


An Honest Man . . . 


93 


Inside the Town 


151 


The Town by Night . 


94 


The Old Well . . . 


153 


Generations of Bare 




'Send hither the Lord 




Feet 


95 


Ulrich ' . . . . 


155 


Our Bedroom . . . 


97 


< Lead me to her Grave ' . 


157 


Practising . 


98 


Under the Linden . . 


158 


Pawing around . . . 


100 


An Excellent Pilot, 




A Night's Work. 


102 


ONCE 


159 


Leaving Heilbronn . . 


105 


SCATTERATION 


159 


The Captain 


107 


The River Bath . . . 


160 


Waiting for the Train . 


108 


Etruscan Tear-Jug . 


162 


'A Deep and Tranquil 




Henri H. Plate . . . 


162 


Ecstasy' . . . . 


111 


Old Blue China 


162 


' Which answered just as 




A Real Antique . . . 


164 


WELL ' 


112 


Bric-a-Brac Shop 


165 


Life on a Raft . 


113 


' Put it there ' . . 


167 


Rafting on the Neckar . 


114 


The Parson captured 


16S 


Lady Gertrude . 


116 


After Him ! . . . . 


170 




117 


A Comprehensive Yawn . 


172 


A Fatal Mistake 


118 


Testing the Coin . . . 


174 


A Crusader and his Lady . 


118 


Beauty at the Bath 


174 


The Lorelei 


121 


In the Bath . . . 


176 


The Lover's Fate. . . 


123 


Jersey Indians . 


177 


Tailpiece . 


129 


Not particularly Socia- 




The Unknown Knight 


131 


ble 


180 


The Embrace 


132 


Black Forest Grandee . 


182 


Perilous Position . . . 


133 


Grandee's Daughter 


183 


The Raft in a Storm 


136 


Rich Old Huss . . . 


185 


All Safe on Shore . 


137 


Gretchen . 


185 


' It was the Cat ' . . . 


139 


Paul Hoch . . 


186 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Hans Schmidt 

Electing- a New Member 

Overcoming Obstacles . 

Friends 

Prospecting . . • . 

A General Howl . . . 

Seeking a Situation 

Standing Guard . . . 

Result of a Joke 

Descending a Farm . . 

Keeping Sunday 

An Object of Sympathy . 

A Non-Classical Style . 

Traditional Chamois . . 

Hunting Chamois — the 
True Way . ... 

Hunting Chamois (as re- 
ported) . . . . 

Marking Alpenstocks 

Is She Eighteen or 
Twenty ? . 

*i knew i wasn't mis- 
TAKEN ' 

Harris astonished . . 

Destruction 

The Lion of Lucerne . . 

He liked Clocks 

1 1 will tell you ' . . 

Couldn't wait . 

Didn't care for Style . 

A Pair Better than Four . 

Two wasn't Necessary . 

Just the Trick . 

Going to make them 
stare .... 

Not thrown away . . 

What the Doctor recom- 
mended . . . . 



PAGE 




PAGE 


186 


Wanted to feel safe 


237 


187 


Preferred to Tramp on 




189 


Foot 


237 


189 


Dern a Dog, anyway . . 


238 


191 


A Fisher .... 


239 


195 


Glacier Garden . . . 


241 


197 


The Lake and Mountains 




199 


(Mont Pilatus) . . . 


243 


200 


Mountain Paths 


244 


201 


'You're an American — so 




204 


AM I' 


245 


205 


Enterprise . . . . 


248 


208 


The Constant Searcher . 


250 


211 


The Mountain Boy . . 


254 




The Englishman 


255 


212 


The Jodler . . . . 


257 




Another Vocalist 


258 


213 


The Felsenthor . . . 


259 


216 


A View from the Station . 


260 




Lost in the Mist . . . 


261 


217 


The Rigi-Kulm Hotel 


262 




What awakened us . . 


264 


218 


A Summit Sunrise 


265 


224 


Perched aloft . . . 


267 


226 


Exceedingly Comfortable 270 


228 


The Sunrise 


271 


231 


The Rigi-Kulm . . . 


273 


233 


An Optical Illusion. 


275 


234 


Seeing the Sunrise 


276 



234 
235 
235 
235 

236 
236 

236 



Railway down the Moun- 
tain 277 

Source of the Rhone . 280 
A Glacier Table . . . 282 
Glacier of Grindelwald . 284 
Dawn on the Mountains . 286 
A 'Rest' .... 289 
New and Old Style . 291 

St. Nicholas the Hermit 292 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



A Landslide 

Goldau Valley before 
and after the land- 
SLIDE 

The Way they do it 

Our Gallant Driver , . 

A Mountain Pass 

'I'm 'oful dry' . . . 

It's the Fashion 

What we expected . . 

We missed the Scenery . 

The Tourists . . . . 

The Young Bride 

« It was a famous Victory ' 

The Jungfrau, by M. T. . 

Promenade in Inter- 

laken .... 
Street in Interlaken 
Without a Courier . 
Travelling with a 

Courier . 
Travellers' Trials . . 
Grape and Whey Patients 
Sociable Drivers 
A Mountain Cascade . . 
The Gasternthal 
Exhilarating Sport . . 

A Fall 

What might be . . . 
An Alpine Bouquet . 
The End of the World . 
The Forget-me-not . 
A Needle of Ice . . . 
Cutting Steps . 
The Guide . . . . 
View from the Cliff 
Gemmi Pass and Lake 

Daubensee 



PAGE 




TAGB 


293 


Almost a Tragedy 


. 318 




The Alpine Litter . 


. 319 




A Strange Situation . 


350 


291 


Death Of a Countess 


351 


296 


'They've got it all' . 


355 


297 


Model for an Empress 


356 


299 


The Bathers at Leuk 


357 


300 


Bath Houses at Leuk 


359 


301 


Bather mixed up . 


362 


302 


'Slovenly' . 


363 


303 


A Sunday Morning's 




306 


Demon 


365 


308 


Just saved 


368 


309 


View in Valley of Zermatt 371 


310 


Arrival at Zermatt 


371 




Fitted out 


377 


311 


An Alp- Climber. 


378 


315 


All ready . . . 


383 


317 


The March .... 


381 




The Caravan .... 


385 


318 


The Hook .... 


388 


320 


The Disabled Chaplain . 


389 


323 


Trying Experiments 


390 


325 


Saved ! Saved ! . . 


391 


326 


Twenty Minutes' Work . 


392 


327 


The Black Kam . . . 


393 


328 


The Miracle 


391 


329 


The New Guide . . . 


395 


332 


Scientific Besearches 


397 


333 


Mountain Chalet 


399 


335 


The Grandson . . . 


102 


336 


Occasionally met with . 


101 


338 


Summit of the Gorner 




311 


Grat ... 


106 


311 


Chiefs of the Advance 




311 


Guard .... 
My Picture of the 


107 


315 


Matterhorn . 


108 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



xxin 



everyeody had an excuse 

Sprung a Leak . . . 

A Scientific Question 

Unexpected Meeting of 
Friends .... 

Roped together . . . 

Storage of Ancestors 

Falling out of his Farm . 

Child Life in Switzer- 
land 

A Sunday Play . 

The Combination . . . 

Chillon .... 

The Tete Noire . . . 

An Exquisite Thing . 

A Wild Ride . . . . 

Swiss Peasant Girl . 

Street in Chamonix . . 

The Proud German . 

The Indignant Tourist . 

Music of Switzerland 

Only a Mistake . . . 

Preparing for the Start . 

4 We all raised a Tremen- 
dous Shout' . 

The Grands Mulets . . 

Cabin on the Grands 
Mulets . . . . 

Keeping Warm . 

On the Alps . . . . 

Take it Easy 

The Mer de Glace (Mont 
Blanc) .... 

Taking Toll . . . 



PAGE 




PAGE 


413 


A Descending Tourist 


479 


415 


Leaving by Diligence 


480 


417 


The Satisfied Englishman 


481 




High Pressure . 


483 


424 


No Apology . . . . 


485 


432 


None asked 


485 


434 


A Lively Street . . , 


486 


435 


Having her Full Rights . 


487 




How she fooled us . . 


489 


437 


• You'll take that or 




438 


NONE ' 


492 


439 


Robbing a Beggar . 


494 


440 


Dishonest Italy . . . 


496 


441 


Stock in Trade . 


496 


443 


Style 


497 


444 


Specimens from Old 




445 


Masters . . . . 


4 98 


449 


An Old Master . 


500 


451 


The Lion of St. Mark 


501 


452 


Oh, to be at Rest ! . 


502 


455 


The World's Master- 




456 


piece . 


504 


458 


Pretty Creature ! . . 


505 




Esthetic Tastes 


508 


462 


A Private Family Break- 




465 


fast 


509 




European Carving . . 


511 


466 


A Twenty-four Hour 




468 


Fight 


523 


471 


Great Heidelberg Tun . 


530 


473 


Bismarck in Prison . . 


534 




On the Mountains . 


537 


475 


A Complete Word . . 


547 


477 


Tailpiece . 


564 



A TRAMP ABROAD, 



CHAPTER I. 

One day it occurred to me that it had been many years since the world 
had been afforded the spectacle of a man adventurous enough to under- 
take a journey through Europe on foot. After much thought, I decided 
that I was a person fitted to furnish to mankind this spectacle. So I 
determined to do it. This was in March, 1878. 

I looked about me for the right sort of person to accompany me in 
the capacity of agent, and finally hired a Mr. Harris for this service. 

It was also my purpose to study art while in Europe. Mr. Hams 
was in sympathy with me in this. He was as much of an enthusiast in 
art as I was, and not less anxious to learn to paint. I desired to learn 
the German language ; so did Harris. 

Towards the middle of April we sailed in the ' Holsatia,' Captain 
Brandt, and had a very pleasant trip indeed. 

After a brief rest at Hamburg, we made preparations for a long 
pedestrian trip southward in the soft spring weather, but at the last 
moment we changed the programme, for private reasons, and took the 
express train. 

We made a short halt at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and found it an 
interesting city. I would have liked to visit the birth-place of Guten- 
berg, but it could not be done, as no memorandum of the site of the 
louse has been kept. So we spent an hour in the Goethe mansion 
instead. The city permits this house to belong to private parties, 
instead of gracing and dignifying herself with the honour of possessing 
and protecting it. 

B 
// 



2 TRAMP ABROAD. 

Frankfort is one of the sixteen cities which have the distinction of 
being the place where the following incident occurred. Charlemagne, 
while chasing the Saxons (as he said), or being chased by them (as 
they said), arrived at the bank of the river at dawn, in a fog. The 
enemy were either before him or behind him; but in any case he 
wanted to get across, very badly. He would have given anything for 
a guide, but none was to be had. Presently he saw a deer, followed 
by her young, approach the water. He watched her, judging that she 
would seek a ford, and he was right. She waded over, and the army 
followed. So a great Frankish victory or defeat was gained or avoided ; 
and in order to commemorate the episode, Charlemagne commanded a 
city to be built there, which he named Frankfort — the ford of the 
Franks. None of the other cities where this event happened were named 
from it. This is good evidence that Frankfort was the first place it 
occurred at. 

Frankfort has another distinction — it is the birthplace of the German 
alphabet : or at least of the German word for alphabet — Buchstdben. 
They say that the first movable types were made on birch sticks — 
Buchstabe — hence the name. 

I was taught a lesson in political economy in Frankfort. I had 
brought from home a box containing a thousand very cheap cigars. 
By way of experiment I stepped into a little shop in a queer old back 
street, took four gaily decorated boxes of wax matches and three 
cigars, and laid down a silver piece worth 48 cents. The man gave 
me 43 cents change. 

In Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we noticed 
that this strange thing was the case in Hamburg too, and in the villages 
along the road. Even in the narrowest and poorest and most ancient 
quarters of Frankfort neat and clean clothes were the rule. The little 
children of both sexes were nearly always nice enough to take into 
a body's lap. And as for the uniforms of the soldiers, they were 
newness and brightness carried to perfection. One could never detect 
a smirch or a grain of dust upon them. The street car conductors and 
drivers wore pretty uniforms, which seemed to be just out of the band- 
box, and their manners were as fine as their clothes. 

In one of the shops I had the luck to stumble upon a book which 
has charmed me nearly to death. It is entitled ' The Legends of the 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Rhine from Basle to Rotterdam,' by F. J. Kief er ; translated by L. W. 
Garnham, B.A. 

All tourists mention the Rhine legends — in that sort of way which 
quietly pretends that the mentioner has been familiar with them all his 
life, and that the reader cannot possibly be ignorant of them — but no 
tourist ever tells them. So this little book fed me in a very hungry 
place; and I, in my turn, intend to feed my reader, with one or two 
little lunches from the same larder. I shall not mar Garnham's trans- 
lation by meddling with its English ; for the most toothsome thing 
about it is its quaint fashion of building English sentences on the German 
plan, — and punctuating them according to no plan at all. 

In the . chapter devoted to ' Legends of Frankfort ' I find the 
following. 

THE KNAVE OF BERGEN. 

1 In Frankfort at the Romer was a great mask-ball, at the corona- 
tion festival, and in the illuminated saloon, the clanging music invited 
to dance, and splendidly appeared the rich toilets and charms of the 
ladies, and the festively costumed Princes and Knights. All seemed 
pleasure, joy, and roguish gayety, only one of the numerous guests had 
a gloomy exterior ; but exactly the black armour in which he walked 



s&M' 



about excited general attention, and his 
tall figure, as well as the noble propriety 
of his movements, attracted especially the 
regards of the ladies. Who the Knight 
was ? Nobody could guess, for his Vizier 
was well closed, and nothing made him 
recognisable. Proud and yet modest he 
advanced to the Empress; bowed on one 
knee before her seat, and begged for the 
favour of a waltz with the Queen of the 
festival. And she allowed his request. 
With light and graceful steps he danced 
through the long saloon, with the sovereign 
who thought never to have found a more 

dexterous and excellent dancer. But also by the grace of his manner, 
and fine conversation he knew to win the Queen, and she graciously 

b2 




THE BLACK KNIGHT. 



4 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

accorded him a second dance for which he begged, a third, and a fourth, 
as well as others were not refused him. How all regarded the happy 
dancer, how many envied him the high favour ; how increased curi- 
osity, who the masked knight could be. 

1 Also the Emperor became more and more excited with curiosity, 
and with great suspense one awaited the hour, when according to mask- 
law, each masked guest must make himself known. This moment 
came; but although all others had unmasked, the secret knight still 
refused to allow his features to be seen, till at last the Queen, driven 
by curiosity, and vexed at the obstinate refusal, commanded him to 




OPENING HIS VIZIEE. 



open his Vizier. He opened it, and none of the high ladies and knights 
knew him. But from the crowded spectators, 2 officials advanced, who 
recognised the black dancer, and horror and terror spread in the saloon, 
as they said who the supposed knight was. It was the executioner of 
Bergen. But glowing with rage, the King commanded to seize the 
criminal and lead him to death, who had ventured to dance, with the 
Queen; so disgraced the Empress, and insulted the crown. The 
culpable threw himself at the feet of the Emperor, and said, — 

* " Indeed I have heavily sinned against all noble guests assembled 
here, but most heavily against you my sovereign and my queen. The 
Queen is insulted by my haughtiness equal to treason, but no punishment, 
even blood, will not be able to wash out the disgrace, which you have 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



suffered by me. Therefore, oh King ! allow me to propose a remedy, 

to efface the shame, and to render it as if not done. Draw your sword 

and knight me, then I will throw 

down my gauntlet, to every one who 

dares to speak disrespectfully of my 

king." 

i The Emperor was surprised at 
this bold proposal, however it ap- 
peared the wisest to him ; " You are 
a brave knave," he replied after a 
moment's consideration, " however 
your advice is good, and displays 
prudence, as your offence shows ad- 
venturous courage. Well then" — 
and gave him the knight-stroke — 
" so I raise you to nobility, who 
begged for grace for your offence 
now kneels before me, rise as knight ; 
knavish you have acted, and Knave 

of Bergen shall you be called henceforth," and gladly the Black knight 
rose ; three cheers were given in honour of the Emperor, and loud 
cries of joy testified the approbation with which the Queen danced 
still once with the Knave of Bergen, 




THE ENRAGED EMPEROR. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER II. 



HEIDELBERG. 



"We stopped at an hotel by the railway station. Next morning, as we 
sat in my room waiting for breakfast to come up, we got a good deal 
interested in something which was going on over the way in front of 
another hotel. First, the personage who is called the portier (who 
is not the porter, but is a sort of first-mate of an hotel) 1 appeared 
at the door in a spick and span new blue cloth uniform, decorated with 
shining brass buttons, and with bands of gold lace around his cap and 
wristbands ; and he wore white gloves, too. He shed an official glance 
upon the situation, and then began to give orders. Two women- 
servants came out with pails and brooms and brushes, and gave the 
side- walk a thorough scrubbing ; meanwhile two others scrubbed the 
four marble steps which led up to the door ; beyond these we could 
see some men-servants taking up the carpet of the grand staircase. This 
carpet was carried away and the last grain of dust beaten and banged 
and swept out of it ; then brought back and put down again. The brass 
stair rods received an exhaustive polishing and were returned to their 
places. Now a troop of servants brought pots and tubs of blooming 
plants and formed them into a beautiful jungle about the door and the 
base of the staircase. Other servants adorned all the balconies of the 
various stories with flowers and banners ; others ascended to the roof 
and hoisted a great flag on a staff there. Now came some more 
chambermaids and retouched the sidewalk, and afterwards wiped the 
marble steps with damp cloths, and finished by dusting them off with 
feather brushes. Now a broad black carpet was brought out and laid 

1 See Appendix A. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



down the marble steps and out across the side-walk to the kerbstone. 
The portier cast his eye along it, and found it was not absolutely straight ; 
he commanded it to be straightened ; the servants made the effort — 
made several efforts, in fact — but the portier was not satisfied. He 
finally had it taken up, and then he 
put it down himself and got it right. 

At this stage of the proceedings 
a narrow, bright red carpet was un- 
rolled and stretched from the top of 
the marble steps to the kerbstone, 
along the centre of the black carpet. 
This red path cost the portier more 
trouble than even the black one had 
done. But he patiently fixed and re- 
fixed it until it was exactly right and 
lay precisely in the middle of the 
black carpet. In New York these per- 
formances would have gathered a 
mighty crowd of curious and in- 
tensely interested spectators ; but 
here it only captured an audience of 
half-a-dozen little boys, who stood in 
a row across the pavement, some with 
their school knapsacks on their backs 
and their hands in their pocket? 
others with arms full of bundles, and 
all absorbed in the show. Occasion- 
ally one of them skipped irreverently 
over the carpet and took up a position on the other side. This always 
visibly annoyed the portier. 

Now came a waiting interval. The landlord, in plain clothes, and 
bareheaded, placed himself on the bottom marble step, abreast the 
portier, who stood on the other end of the same step ; six or eight 
waiters, gloved, bareheaded, and wearing their whitest linen, their 
whitest cravats, and their finest swallow-tails, grouped themselves about 
these chiefs, but leaving the carpet- way clear. Nobody moved or 
spoke any more, but only waited. 




THE PORTIER. 




8 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

In a short time the shrill piping of a coming train was heard and 
immediately groups of people began to gather in the street. Two or 

three open carriages arrived, 
and deposited some maids- 
of-honour and some male 
officials at the hotel. Pre- 
sently another open carriage 
brought the Grand-Duke of 
Baden, a stately man in 
uniform, who wore the hand- 
some brass-mounted, steel- 
spiked helmet of the army 
on his head. Last came 
the Empress of Germany 
one of those boys. an a tne Grand Duchess of 

Baden in a close carriage ; these passed through the low bowing groups 
of servants and disappeared in the hotel, exhibiting to us only the 
backs of their heads, and then the show was over. 

It appears to be as difficult to land a monarch as it is to launch 
a ship. 

But as to Heidelberg. The weather was growing pretty warm- 
very warm, in fact. So we left the valley and took quarters at 
the Schloss Hotel, on the hill, above the Castle. 

Heidelberg lies at the mouth of a narrow gorge — a gorge the shape 
of a shepherd's crook ; if one looks up it he perceives that it is about 
straight for a mile and a half, then makes a sharp curve to the right 
and disappears. This gorge — along whose bottom pours the swift 
Neckar — is confined between (or cloven through) a couple of long, 
steep ridges, a thousand feet high and densely wooded clear to their 
summits, with the exception of one section which has been shaved 
and put under cultivation. These ridges are chopped off at the mouth 
of the gorge, and form two bold and conspicuous headlands, with 
Heidelberg nestling between them ; from their bases spreads away the 
vast dim expanse o£ the Ehine valley, and into this expanse the Neckar 
goes wandering in shining curves, and is presently lost to view. 

Now, if one turns and looks up the gorge once more, he will see 
the Schloss Hotel on the right, perched on a precipice overlooking the 



E 




SCHL0S3 HOTEL, HEIDELBERG. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



11 



Neckar, — a precipice which is so sumptuously cushioned and draped 
with foliage that no glimpse of the rock appears. The building seems 
very airily situated. It has the appearance of being on a shelf halfway 
up the wooded mountain side ; and as it is remote and isolated, and 
very white, it makes a strong mark against the lofty leafy rampart at 
its back. 

This hotel had a feature which was a decided novelty ; and one 
which might be adopted with advantage by any house which is perched 
in a commanding situation. This feature may be described as a series 
of glass-enclosed parlours clinging to the outside of the house, one 




IN MY CAGE. 

against each and every bedchamber and drawing-room. They are like 
long, narrow, high-ceiled bird-cages hung against the building. My 
room was a corner room, and had two of these things, a north one and 
a west one. 

From the north cage one looks up the Neckar gorge ; from the west 
one he looks down it. This last affords the most extensive view, and 
it is one of the loveliest that can be imagined, too. Out of a billowy 
upheaval of vivid green foliage, a rifle-shot removed, rises the huge 
ruin of Heidelberg Castle, 1 with empty window arches, ivy-mailed battle- 

1 See Appendix B. 



12 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

merits, mouldering towers — the Lear of inanimate nature, — deserted, 
discrowned, beaten by the storms, but royal still, and beautiful. It is 
a fine sight to see the evening sunlight suddenly strike the leafy de- 
clivity at . the Castle's base and dash up it an d drench it as with a 
luminous spray, while the adjacent groves are in deep shadow. 

Behind the Castle swells a great dome-shaped hill, forest-clad, and 
beyond that a nobler and loftier one. The Castle looks down upon the 
compact brown-roofed town ; and from the town two picturesque old 
bridges span the river. Now the view broadens ; through the gateway 
of the sentinel headlands you gaze out over the wide Rhine plain, 
which stretches away, softly and richly-tinted, grows gradually and 
dreamily indistinct, and finally melts imperceptibly into the remote 
horizon. 

I have never enjoyed a view which had such a serene and satisfying 
• charm about it as this one gives. 

The first night we were there, we went to bed and to sleep early , 
but I awoke at the end of two or three hours, and lay a comfortable 
while listening to the soothing patter of the rain against the balcony 
windows. I took it to be rain, but it turned out to be only the murmur 
of the restless Neckar, tumbling over her dykes and dams far below, in 
the gorge. I got up and went into the west balcony and saw a wonder- 
ful sight. Away down on the level, under the black mass of the 
Castle, the town lay, stretched along the river, its intricate cobweb of 
streets jewelled with twinkling lights; there were rows of lights on the 
bridges ; these flung lances of light upon the water, in the black shadows 
of the arches; and away ft the extremity of all this fairy spectacle 
blinked and glowed a massed multitude of gas jets which seemed to 
cover acres of ground ; it was as if all the diamonds in the world had 
been spread out there. I did not know before, that a half mile of sex- 
tuple railway tracks could be made such an adornment. 

One thinks Heidelberg by day — with its surroundings — is the last 
possibility of the beautiful ; but when he sees Heidelberg by night, 
a fallen Milky Way, with that glittering railway constellation pinned 
to the border, he requires time to consider upon the verdict. 

One never tires of poking about in the dense woods that clothe 
all these lofty Neckar hills to their tops. The great deeps of a bound- 
less forest have a. beguiling afid impressive charm in any country ; 



ID 

i !i ii9 
: i I lint.! 



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A TRAMP ABROAD. 15 

but German legends and fairy tales have given these an added charm. 
They have peopled all that region with gnomes, and dwarfs, and all sorts 
of mysterious and uncanny creatures. At the time I am writing of, I 
had been reading so much of this literature that sometimes I was not 
sure but I was beginning to believe in the gnomes and fairies as 
realities. 

One afternoon I got lost in the woods about a mile from the hotel, 
and presently fell into a train of dreamy thought about animals which 
talk, and kobolds, and enchanted folk, and the rest of the pleasant 
legendary stuff; and so, by stimulating my fancy, I finally got to 
imagining I glimpsed small flitting shapes here and there down the 
columned aisles of the forest. It was a place which was peculiarly 
meet for the occasion. It was a pine wood, with so thick and soft a 
carpet of brown needles that one's footfall made no more sound than if 
he was treading on wool ; the tree-trunks were as round and straight 
and smooth as pillars, and stood close together ; they were bare of 
branches to a point about twenty-five feet above ground, and from 
there upward so thick with boughs that not a ray of sunlight could 
pierce through. The world was bright with sunshine outside, but a 
deep and mellow twilight reigned in there, and also a silence so pro- 
found that I seemed to hear my own breathings. 

"When I had stood ten minutes, thinking and imagining, and getting 
my spirit in tune with the place, and in the right mood to enjoy the 
supernatural, a raven suddenly uttered a hoarse croak over my head. 
It made me start ; and then I was angry because I started. I looked 
up, and the creature was sitting on a limb right over me, looking down 
at me. I felt something of the same sense of humiliation and injury 
which one feels when he finds that a human stranger has been clandes- 
tinely inspecting him in his privacy and mentally commenting upon 
him. I eyed the raven, and the raven eyed me. Nothing was said 
during some seconds. Then the bird stepped a little way along his 
limb to get a better point of observation, lifted his wings, stuck his 
head far down below his shoulders toward me, and croaked again — a 
croak with a distinafty insulting expression about it. If he had spoken 
in English he could not have said any more plainly than he did say 
in raven, ' Well, what do you want here ? ' I felt as foolish as if I 
nad been caught in some mean act by a responsible being, and re- 



16 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



proved for it. However, I made no reply ; 1 would not bandy words 
with a raven. The adversary waited a while, with his shoulders still 
lilted, his head thrust down between them, and his keen bright eye fixed 
on me ; then he threw out two or three more insults, which I could 
not understand, further than that I knew a portion of them consisted of 
language not used in church. 

I still made no reply. Now the adversary raised his head an 
called. There was an answering croak from a little distance in the 




THE RETREAT. 



wood — evidently a croak of inquiry. The adversary explained with 
enthusiasm, and the other raven dropped everything and came. The 
two sat side by side on the limb and discussed me as freely and offen- 
sively as two great naturalists might discuss a new kind of bug. 
The thing became more and more embarrassing. They called in 
another friend. This was too much. I saw that they had the advan- 
tage of me, and so I concluded to get out of the scrape by walking out 




HEIDELBERG CASTLE, RIVER FRONTAOE, 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



19 



of it. They enjoyed my defeat as much as any low white people 
could have dona. They craned their necks and laughed at me (for n 
raven can laugh, just like a man), they squalled insulting remarks after 
me as long as they could see me. They were nothing but ravens — I 
knew that — what they thought about me could be a matter of no conse- 
quence — and yet when even a raven shouts after you : ' What a hat ! ' 
1 0, pull down your vest ! ' and that sort of thing, it hurts you and 
humiliates you, and there is no getting around it with tine reasoning 
and pretty arguments. 

Animals talk to each other, of course. There can be no question 
about that ; but I suppose there are very few people who can under- 
stand them. I never knew but one man who could. I knew he 
could, however, because he told me so himself. He was a middle-aged, 
simple-hearted miner who had lived in a lonely corner of California, 
among the woods and mountains, a good many years, and had studied 
the ways of his only neighbours, the 
beasts and the birds, until he believed 
he could accurately translate any re- 
mark which they made. This was 
Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker, 
some animals have only a limited 
education, and use only very simple 
wprds, and scarcely ever a comparison 
or a flowery figure ; whereas, certain 
other animals have a large vocabu- 
lary, a fine command of language and 
a ready and fluent delivery ; conse- 
quently these latter talk a great deal ; 
they like it ; they are conscious of 
their talent, and they enjoy ' showing off.' Baker said that, after long 
and careful observation, he had come to the conclusion that the blue- 
jays were the best talkers he had found among birds and beasts. 
Said he : — 

4 There's more to a blue-jay than any other creature. He has got 
more moods, and more different kinds of feelings than other creatures ; 
and mind you, whatever a blue-jay feels, he can put into language. 
And no mere commonplace language either, but rattling, out-and-out 

c2 




2.0 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

book-talk — and bristling with metaphor, too — just bristling ! And as 
for command of language — why you never see a blue-jay get stuck 
for a word. No man ever did. They just boil out hi him ! And 
another thing : I've noticed a good deal, and there's no bird, or cow, or 
anything that uses as good grammar as a blue-jay. Ycu may say a 
cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does— but you et a cat get 
excited, once ; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a 
shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that will give you he lockjaw. 
Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats makv, that is so 
aggravating, but it ain't so ; it's the sickening grammar Nhey use. 
Now I've never heard a jay use bad grammar but very seldo-i • an d 
when they do, they are as ashamed as a human ; they shut righ down 
and leave. 

' You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure — r. cause 
he's got feathers on him, and don't belong to no church, perhaj • Du t 
otherwise he is just as much a human as you be. And I'll t.[ vou 
for why. "A jay's gifts, and instincts, and feelings, and ir 3res t s 
cover the whole ground. A jay hasn't got any more princip, than 
a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deiW, a 
jay will betray ; and four times out of five, a jay will go back «\ his 
solemnest promise. The sacredness of an obligation is a thing \{ c ]^ 
you can't cram into no blue-jay's head. Now, on top of all this, tht' s 
another thing ; a jay can outswear any gentleman in the mines. 1 • 
think a cat can swear. Well, a cat can ; but you give a blue-jay a 
subject that calls for his reserve powers, and where is your cat? 
Don't talk to me — I know too much about this thing. And there's- 
yet another thing: in the one little particular of scolding — just good> 
clean, out-and-out scolding — a blue-jay can lay over anything, human 
or divine, Yes, sir, a jay is everything that a man is. A jay can cry r 
a ja}' can laugh, a jay can feel shame, a jay can reason and plan and 
discuss, a jay likes gossip and scandal, a jay has got a sense of humour, 
a jay knows when he is an ass just as well as you do — may be better. 
If a jay ain't human, he'd better take in his sign, that's all. Now 
I'm going to tell you a perfectly true fact about some blue-jays.' 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 21 



CHAPTER in. 

baker's blue-jay yarn, 

* When I first begun to understand jay language correctly, there was a 
'little incident happened here. Seven years ago, the last man in this 
region but me, moved away. There stands his house, — been empty 
•ever since ; a log house, with a plank roof — just one big room, and no 
more ; no ceiling — nothing between the rafters and the floor. Well, 
one Sunday morning I was sitting out here in front of my cabin, with 
my cat, taking the sun, and looking at the blue hills, and listening to 
the leaves rustling so lonely in the trees, and thinking of the home 
away yonder in the States, that I hadn't heard from in thirteen years, 
when a blue-jay lit on that house, with an acorn in his mouth, and says, 
"Hello, I reckon I have struck something." When he spoke, the 
acorn dropped out of his mouth and rolled down the roof, of course, 
but he didn't care ; his mind was all on the thing he had struck. It was 
a knot-hole in the roof. He cocked his head to one side, shut one eye, 
and put the other one to the hole, like a 'possum looking down a 
jug ; then he glanced up with his bright eyes, gave a wink or two with 
his wings — which signifies gratification, you understand, — and says, 
" It looks like a hole, it's located like a hole, — blamed if I don't 
believe it is a hole ! " 

' Then he cocked his head down and took another look ; he glances 
up perfectly joyful, this time ; winks his wings and his tail both, and 
says, " 0, no, this ain't no fat thing, I reckon ! If I ain't in luck ! — 
-why it's a perfectly elegant hole 1 " So he flew down and got that 
acorn, and fetched it up and dropped it in, and was just tilting his 
head back, with the heavenliest smile on his face, when all of a sudden 
he was paralysed into a listening attitude, and that smile faded gradually 



22 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

out of his countenance like breath ofF'n a razor, and the queerest look 
of surprise took its place. Then he says, "Why, I didn't hear it fall!" - 
He cocked his eye at the hole again, and took a long look; raised up 
and shook his head ; stepped around to the other side of the hole, and 
took another look from that side ; shook his head again. He studied 
a while, then he just went into the details — walked round and round 
the hole, and spied into it from every point of the compass. No use. 
Now he took a thinking attitude on the comb of the roof, and scratched 
the back of his head with his right foot a minute, and finally says r 
" Well, it's too many for me, that's certain ; must be a mighty long 
hole ; however, I ain't got no time to fool around here, I got to 'tend 
to business ; I reckon it's all right — chance it, anyway." 

' So he flew off and fetched another acorn and dropped it in, and 
tried to flirt his eye to the hole quick enough to see what become of 
it, but he was too late. He held his eye there as much as a minute \ 
then he raised up and sighed, and says, " Confound it, I don't seem to 
understand this thing, no way ; however, I'll tackle her again." He 
fetched another acorn, and done his level best to see what become of 
it, but he couldn't. He says, " Well, i" never struck no such a hole 
as this, before ; I'm of the opinion it's a totally new kind of a hole."" 
Then he begun to get mad. He held in for a spell, walking up and 
down the comb of the roof and shaking his head and muttering to 
himself; but his feelings got the upper hand of him, presently, and he 
broke loose and cussed himself black in the face. I never see a bird 
take on so about a little thing. When he got through he walks to 
the hole and looks in again for half a minute; then he says, " Well, 
you're a long hole, and a deep hole, and a mighty singular hole 
altogether — but I've started in to fill you, and I'm d — d if I don't fill 
you, if it takes a hundred years ! " 

' And with that, away he went. You never see a bird work so 
since you was born. He laid into his work like a nigger, and the way 
he hove acorns into that hole for about two hours and a half was one 
of the most exciting and astonishing spectacles I ever struck. He 
never stopped to take a look any more — he just hove 'em in and went 
for more. Well, at last he .could hardly flop his wings, he was so 
tuckered out. He comes a-drooping down, once more, sweating like 
an ice-pitcher, drops his acorn in and says, " Now I guess I've got the 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



23 



bulge on you by this time ! " So he bent down for a look. If you'll 
believe me, when his head come up again he was just pale with rage. 
He says, " I've shovelled acorns enough in there to keep the family 
thirty years, and if I can see a 
sign of one of 'em I wish I may ^ 
land in a museum with a 
belly full of sawdust in two 
minutes ! " 

1 He just had strength ^_ 
enough to crawl up on to the 
comb, and lean his back agin the 
chimbly, and then he collected his 
pressions, and begun to free his mind. 
see in a second that what I had mistook for ^ 
profanity in the mines was only just the rudi- 
ments, as you may say. 

' Another jay was going by, and heard him 
doing his devotions, and stops to inquire what was 
up. The sufferer told him the whole circum- 
stance, and says, " Now yonder's the hole, and if 
you don't believe me go and look for yourself.' 
So this fellow went and looked, and comes back 
and says, a How many did you say you 
put in there ? " " Not any less than two 
tons," says the sufferer. The other « * 
jay went and looked again. He 
couldn't seem to make it out, so 
he raised a yell, and three more 
jays come. They all examined 
the hole, they all made the ' A BLUE flush about ir/ 

sufferer tell it over again, then they all discussed it, and got off as many 
leather-headed opinions about it as an average crowd of humans could 
have done. * 

' They called in more jays ; then more and more, till pretty soon 
this whole region 'peared to have a blue flush about it. There must 
have been five thousand of them ; and such another jawing and disput- 
ing and ripping and cussing, you never heard. Every jay in the whole 




24 



A TEA MP ABROAD. 



lot put his eye to the hole and delivered a more chuckle-headed 
opinion about the mystery than the jay that went there before him. 
They examined the house all over, too. The door was standing half 
open, and at last one old jay happened to go and light on it and look 

in. Of course that knocked 
the mystery galley- west in 
a second. There lay the 
acorns, scattered all over 
the floor. He flopped his 
wings and raised a whoop. 
" Come here ! " he says, 
" come here, everybody ; 
hang'd if this fool hasn't 
been trying to fill up a 
house with acorns ! " They 
all came a-swooping down 
like a blue cloud, and as 
each fellow lit on the door 
and took a glance, the 
whole absurdity of the 
contract that that first jay 
had tackled hit him home, 
and he fell over backwards 
suffocating with laughter, 
and the next jay took his 
place and done the same. 

' Well, sir, they roosted 
around here on the house- 
top and the trees for an 
hour, and guffawed over 
that thing like human 
beings. It ain't any use to 
tell me a blue-jay hasn't 
got a sense of humour, 
because I know better. And memory, too. They brought jays here 
from all over the United States to look down that hole, every summer 




couldn't see it. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 25 

for three years. Other birds too. And they could all see the point, 
except an owl that come from Nova Scotia to visit the Yo Semite, and 
he took this thing in on his way back. He said he couldn't see any- 
thing funny in it. But then he was a good deal disappointed about Yo 
Semite, too/ 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER IV. 



STUDENT LIFE. 



The summer semester was in full tide ; consequently the most frequent 
figure in and about Heidelberg was the student. Most of the students 
were Germans, of course, but the representatives of foreign lands were 
very numerous. They hailed from every corner of the globe, — for 
instruction is cheap in Heidelberg, and so is living, too. The Anglo- 
American Club, composed of British and American students, had 
twenty-five members, and there was still much material left to draw 
from. 

Nine- tenths of the Heidelberg students wore no badge or uniform; 
the other tenth wore caps of various colours, and belonged to social 
organisations called ' corps.' There were five corps, each with a colour 
of its own ; there were white caps, blue caps, and red, yellow, and 
green ones. The famous duel-fighting is confined to the * corps ' 
boys. The ' Ifneip ' seems to be a speciality of theirs, too. Kneips 
are held, now and then, to celebrate great occasions, — like the election 
of a beer-king, for instance. The solemnity is simple ; the five corps 
assemble at night, and at a signal they all fall loading themselves 
with beer, out of pint mugs, as fast as possible, and each man keeps 
his own count, — usually by laying aside a lucifer match for each mug 
he empties. The election is soon decided. When the candidates 
can hold no more, a count is instituted, and the one who has drunk 
the greatest number of pints- is proclaimed king. I was told that the 
last beer-king elected by the corps, — or by his own capabilities, — 
emptied his mug seventy-five times. No stomach could hold all that 
quantity at one time, of course, — but there are ways of frequently 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



27 




creating a vacuum, which those who have been much at sea will under- 
stand. 

One sees so many 
students abroad at all 
hours, that he pre- 
sently begins to won- 
der if they ever have 
any working hours. 
Some of them have, 
some of them haven't. 
Each can choose for 
himself whether he 
will work or play; 
for German university 
life is a very free 
life ; it seems to have 
no restraints. The 
student does not live 
in the college buildings, but hires his own lodgings, in any locality he 
prefers, and he takes his meals when and where he pleases. He goes 
to bed when it suits him, and does not get up at all unless he wants 
to. He is not entered at the university for any particular length of 
time; so he is likely to change about. He passes no examination 
upon entering college. He merely pays a trifling fee of five or ten 
dollars, receives a card entitling him to the privileges of the univer- 
sity, and that is the end of it. He is now ready for business, — or 
play, as he shall prefer. If he elects to work, he finds a large list 
of lectures to choose from. He selects the subjects which he will 
study, and enters his name for these studies ; but he can skip attend- 
ance. 

The result of this system is, that lecture-courses upon specialities 
of an unusual nature are often delivered to very slim audiences, 
while those upon more practical and every-day matters of educa- 
tion are delivered to very large ones. I heard of one case w r here, day 
after day, the lecturer's audience consisted of three students, — and 
always the same three. But one day two of them remained away. 
The lecturer began as usual — 



— tlicn, without a smile, 



28 A TRAMP ABROAD, 

1 Gentlemen,' — 

he corrected himself, saying,— 

< shy— 

— and went on with his 
discourse. 

It is said that the vast majority of the Heidelberg students are 
hard workers, and make the most of their opportunities ; that they have 
no surplus means to spend in dissipation, and no time to spare for 




THE LECTURER'S AUDIENCE. 

frolicking. One lecture follows right on the heels of another, with 
very little time for the student to get out of one hall and into the next; 
but the industrious ones manage it by going on a trot. The professors 
assist them in the saving of their time by being promptly in their 
little boxed-up pulpits when the hours strike, and as promptly out 
again when the hour finishes. I entered an empty lecture-room one day 
just before the clock struck. The place had simple, unpainted pine 
desks and benches for about 200 persons. 

About a minute before the clock struck, a hundred and fifty 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



29 



Ptudents swarmed in, rushed to their seats, immediately spread open 
their note-books and dipped their pens in the ink. When the clock 
began to strike, a burly professor entered, was received with a round of 
applause, moved swiftly down the centre aisle, said ' Gentlemen,' and 




INDUSTRIOUS STUDENTS. 

began to talk as he climbed his pulpit steps ; and by the time he 
had arrived in his box and faced his audience, his lecture was well 
under way and all the pens __ _ ~V ; p 
were going. He had no V' 

notes, he talked with pro- Jssr 
digious rapidity and energy ^\\ A/^ rf: %- - 
for an hour, — then the^ '- ^^_- / * 
to rem 



students began 



m 



him in certain well-under- 'fe: 




*2U 



stood ways that his time "gf 

was up; he seized his hat, 

still talking, proceeded 

swiftly down his pulpit 

steps, got out the last word 

of his discourse as he 

struck the floor; everybody 

rose respectfully, and he 

swept rapidly down the 

aisle and disappeared. An 

instant rush for some other lecture room followed, and in a minute 

I was alone with the empty benches once more. 



oO 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Yes, without doubt, idle students are not the rule. Out of eight 
hundred in the town, I knew the faces of only about fifty ; but these I 
saw everywhere and daily. They walked about the streets and the 
wooded hills, they drove in cabs, they boated on the river, they sipped 
beer and coffee, afternoons, in the Schloss gardens. A good many of 
them wore the coloured caps of the corps. They were finely and 
fashionably dressed, their manners were quite superb, and they led an 
easy, careless, comfortable life. If a dozen of them sat together, and 
a lady or a gentleman passed whom one of them knew and saluted, 
they all rose to their feet and took off their caps. The members 
of a corps always received a fellow-member in this way, too ; but 
they paid no attention to members of other corps ; they did not seem 
to see them. This was not a discourtesy; it was only a part of the 
elaborate and rigid corps etiquette. 

There seems to be no chilly distance existing between the German 
students and the professor; but, on the contrary, a companionable 

f/ljii'v intercourse, the opposite 

||^W||0I of chilliness and reserve. 

"When the professor enters 







COMPANIONABLE INTERCOURSE. 



•a beer hall in the evening 
l/j where students are gathered 
j\\ together, these rise up and 
r ; take off their caps, and in- 
vite the old gentleman to 
11 sit with them and partake. 
'^f'o He accepts, and the pleasant 
talk and the beer flow for 
an hour or two, and by-and-by the professor, properly charged and 
comfortable, gives a cordial good-night, while the students stand 
bowing and uncovered ; and then he moves on his happy way home- 
ward with all his vast cargo of learning afloat in his hold. Nobody 
finds fault or feels outraged ; no harm has been done. 

It seemed to be a part of corps etiquette to keep a dog or so, too. 
I mean a corps dog, — the common property of the organisation, like 
the corps steward or head servant ; then there are other dogs, owned 
by individuals. 

Gn 1 a summer afternoon in the Castle gardens, I have seen six 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



31 



students march solemnly into the grounds, in single file, each carrying 
a bright Chinese parasol and leading a prodigious dog by a string. 
It was a very imposing spectacle. Sometimes there would be about 
as many dogs around the pavilion as students ; and of all breeds 
and of all degrees of beauty and ugliness 



These dogs had a rather 




AN IMPOSING SPECTACLE. 



dry time of it : for they were tied to the benches and had no amuse- 
ment for an hour or two at a time, except what they could get out of 
pawing at the gnats, or trying to sleep and not succeeding. How- 
ever, they got a lump of sugar occasionally — they were fond of that. 

It seemed right and proper that students should indulge in dogs ; 
but everybody else had them, too, — old men and young ones, old 
women and nice young ladies. If there is one spectacle that is un- 
pleasanter than another, it is that of an elegantly dressed young lady 
towing a dog by a string. It is said to be the sign and symbol of 
blighted love. It seems to me that some other way of advertising it 
might be devised, which would be just as conspicuous and yet not so 
trying to the proprieties. 

It would be a mistake to suppose that the easy-going, pleasure- 
seeking student carries an empty head. Just the contrary. He has 
spent nine years in the Gymnasium, under a system which allowed 
him no freedom, but rigorously compelled him to work like a slave. 
Consequently he has left the gymnasium with an education which is 
so extensive and complete, that the most a university can lo for it is 
to perfect some of its profounder specialities. It is said /hen 



32 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

a pupil leaves the gymnasium, he not only has a comprehensive 
education, but he knows what he knows, — it is not befogged with un- 
certainty, it is burnt into him so that it will stay. For instance, he 




£N ADVERTISEMENT. 



does not merely read and write Greek, but speaks it ; the same with 
the Latin. Foreign youth steer clear of the gymnasium ; its rules are 
too severe. They go to the university to put a mansard roof on 
their whole general education ; but the German student already has his 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 33 

mansard roof, so he goes there to add a steeple in the nature of some 
speciality, such as a particular branch of law, or medicine, or philo- 
logy — like international law, or diseases of the eye, or special study of 
the ancient Gothic tongues. So this German attends only the lectures 
which belong to the chosen branch, and drinks his beer and tows his dog 
around, and has a general good time the rest of the day. He has 
been in rigid bondage so long that the large liberty of university life is 
just what he needs and likes and thoroughly appreciates; and as it 
cannot last for ever, he makes the most of it while it does last, and so 
lays up a good rest against the day that must see him put on the chains 
once more and enter the slavery of official or professional life. 




34 A TRAMP ABROAD* 



CHAPTER V. 

AT THE STUDENTS' DUELLING-GROUND. 

One day in the interest of science my agent obtained permission to 
bring me to the students' duelling-place. We crossed the river and 
drove up the bank a few hundred yards, then turned to the left, 
entered a narrow alley, followed it a hundred yards, and arrived at a 
two-story public-house ; we were acquainted with its outside aspect, 
for it was visible from the hotel. We went upstairs and passed into 
a large whitewashed apartment, which was perhaps fifty feet long, by 
thirty feet wide and twenty or twenty-five high. It was a well-lighted 
place. There was no carpet. Across one end and down both sides 
of the room extended a row of tables, and at these tables some fifty or 
seventy-five students ! were sitting. 

Some of them were sipping wine, others were playing cards, others 
chess, other groups were chatting together, and many were smoking 
cigarettes while they waited for the coming duels. Nearly all of them 
wore coloured caps ; there were white caps, green caps, blue caps, red 
caps, and bright yellow ones ; so, all the five corps were present in 
strong force. In the windows at the vacant end of the room stood six 
or eight long, narrow-bladed swords with large protecting guards 
for the hand, and outside was a man at work sharpening others on 
a grindstone. He understood his business ; for when a sword left his 
hand one could shave himself with it. 

It was observable that the young gentlemen neither bowed to nor 
spoke with students whose caps differed in colour from their own. 
This did not mean hostility, but only an armed neutrality. It was 

1 See Appendix C. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



35 



considered that a person could strike harder in the duel, and with a more 
earnest interest, if he had never been in a condition of comradeship 
with his antagonist ; therefore, comradeship between the corps was 
not permitted. At intervals i,j, 

the presidents of the five corps 
have a cold official inter- 
course with each other, but no- 
thing further. For example, 
when the regular duelling day 
of one of the corps approaches, 
its president calls for volunteers 
from among the membership to 
offer battle ; three or more 
respond, — but there must not 
be less than three ; the presi- 
dent lays their names before 
the other presidents, with the 
request that they furnish an- 
tagonists for these challengers 
from among their corps. This 
is promptly done. It chanced 
that the present occasion was the battle-day of the Red Cap Corps. 
They were the challengers, and certain caps of other colours had 
volunteered to meet them. The students fight duels in the room 
which I have described, two days in every week during seven and a 
half or eight months in every year. This custom has continued in 
Germany two hundred and fifty years. 

To return to my narrative. A student in a white cap met us and 
introduced us to six or eight friends of his who also wore white caps, 
and while we stood conversing, two strange-looking figures were led 
in, from another room. They were students panoplied for the duel. 
They were bare-headed ; their eyes were protected by iron goggles 
which projected an inch or more, the leather straps of which bound 
their ears flat against their heads; their necks were wound around 
and around with thick wrappings which a sword could not cut through ; 
from chin to ankle they were padded thoroughly against injury ; their 
arms were bandaged and re-bandaged, layer upon layer, until they 

D2 




UNDERSTANDS HIS BUSINESS. 



36 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



members of 
corps about 



looked like solid black logs. These weird apparitions had been hand- 
some youths, clad in fashionable attire fifteen minutes before, but now 
they did not resemble any beings one ever sees unless in nightmares. 
They strode along, with their arms projecting straight out from their 
bodies; they did not hold them out themselves, but fellow-students 
walked beside them and gave the needed support. 

There was a rush for the vacant end of the room now, and we 
followed and got good places. The combatants were placed face to 

face, each with several 



his own 
him to 
assist ; two seconds, well 
padded, and with swords 
in their hands, took near 
stations ; a student be- 
longing to neither of the 
opposing corps placed 
himself* in a good posi- 
tion to umpire the 
combat ; another stu- 
dent stood by with a 
watch and a memoran- 
dum-book to keep 
record of the time and 
the number and nature 
of the wounds ; a grey- 
u haired surgeon was 

present with his lint, his bandages, and his instruments. After a 
moment's pause the duellists saluted the umpire respectfully, then one 
after another the several officials stepped forward, gracefully removed 
their caps and saluted him also, and returned to their places. Every- 
thing was ready now ; students stood crowded together in the fore- 
ground, and others stood behind them on chairs and tables. Every 
face was turned towards the centre of attraction. 

The combatants were watching each other with alert eyes ; a perfect 
stillness, a breathless interest reigned. I felt that I was going to see 
some wary work. But not so. The instant the word was given, the 




A TRAMP ABROAD. 



37 



two apparitions sprang forward and began to rain blows down upon 
each other with such lightning rapidity that I could not quite tell 
whether I saw the swords or only the flashes they made in the air ; the 
rattling din of these blows, as they struck steel or paddings, was some- 
thing wonderfully stirring, and they were struck with such terrific force 
that I could not understand why the opposing sword was not beaten 
down under the assault. Presently, in the midst of the sword-flashes, 
I saw a handful of hair skip into the air as if it had lain loose on the 
victim's head and a breath of wind had puffed it suddenly away. 

The seconds cried ' Halt ! ' and knocked up the combatants' swords 




THE FIRST WOUND. 



with their own. The duellists sat down ; a student official stepped 
forward, examined the wounded head, and touched the place with a 
sponge once or twice ; the surgeon came and turned back the hair 
from the wound, and revealed a crimson gash two or three inches long, 
and proceeded to bind an oval piece of leather and a bunch of lint 
over it ; the tallykeeper stepped up and tallied one for the opposition 
in his book. 

Then the duellists took position again ; a small stream of blood 
was flowing down the side of the injured man's head, and over his 
shoulder, and down his body to the floor, but he did not seem to mind 



38 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

this. The word was given, and they plunged at each other as fiercely 
as before; once more the blows rained, and rattled, and flashed; 
every few moments the quick-eyed seconds would notice that a sword 
was bent — then they called * Halt ! ' struck up the contending weapons, 
and an assisting student straightened the bent one. 

The wonderful turmoil went on — presently a bright spark sprang 
from a blade, and that blade, broken in several pieces, sent one of ita 
fragments flying to the ceiling. A new sword was provided, and the 
fight proceeded. The exercise was tremendous, of course, and in 
time the fighters began to show great fatigue. They were allowed to 
rest a moment, every little while ; they got other rests by wounding 
each other, for then they could sit down while the doctor applied 
the lint and bandages. The law is that the battle must continue 
fifteen minutes if the men can hold out ; and as the pauses do not 
count, this duel was protracted to twenty or thirty minutes, I judged. 
At last it was decided that the men were too much wearied to do 
battle longer. They were led away drenched with crimson from head 
to foot. That was a good fight, but it could not count, partly because 
it did not last the lawful fifteen minutes (of actual fighting), and partly 
because neither man was disabled by his wounds. It was a drawn 
battle, and corps- law requires that drawn battles shall be re-fought 
as soon as the adversaries are well of their hurts. 

During the conflict, I had talked a little, now and then, with a young 
gentleman of the white cap corps, and he had mentioned that he was to 
fight next — and had also pointed out his challenger, a young gentle- 
man who was leaning against the opposite wall smoking a cigarette, 
and restfully observing the duel then in progress. 

My acquaintanceship with a party to the coming contest had the 
effect of giving me a kind of personal interest in it ; I naturally wished 
he might win, and it was the reverse of pleasant to learn that he 
probably would not, because, although he was a notable swordsman, 
the challenger was held to be his superior. 

The duel presently began, and in the same furious way which 
had marked the previous one. I stood close by, but could not tell which 
blows told and which did not, they fell and vanished so like flashes 
of light. They all seemed to tell ; the swords always bent over the 
opponents' heads, from the forehead back over the crown, and seemed 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 39 

to touch, all the way ; but it was not so — a protecting blade, invisible 
to me, was always interposed between. At the end of ten seconds 
each man had struck twelve or fifteen blows, and warded off 
twelve or fifteen, and no harm done ; then a sword became disabled, 
and a short rest followed whilst a new one was brought. Early in the 
next round the white corps student got an ugly wound on the side 
of his head, and gave his opponent one like it. In the third round 
the latter received another bad wound in the head, and the former had 
his under lip divided. After that, the white corps student gave many 
severe wounds, but got none of consequence in return. At the end of 
five minutes, from the beginning of the duel, the surgeon stopped it ; 
the challenging party had suffered such injuries that any addition to 
them might be dangerous. These injuries were a fearful spectacle, 
but are better left undescribed. So, against expectation, my acquaint- 
ance was the victor. 



40 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTEE VT. 

The third duel was brief and bloody. The surgeon stopped it when 
he saw that one of the men had received such bad wounds that he could 
not fight longer without endangering his life. 

The fourth duel was a tremendous encounter ; but at the end of 
five or six minutes the surgeon interfered once more: another man 
so severely hurt as to render it unsafe to add to his harms. I watched 
this engagement as I had watched the others — with rapt interest and 
strong excitement, and with a shrink and a shudder for every blow 
that laid open a cheek or a forehead ; and a conscious paling of my 
face when I occasionally saw a wound of a yet more shocking nature 
inflicted. My eyes were upon the loser of this duel when he got his 
last and vanquishing wound — it was in his face, and it carried away 
his — but no matter, I must not enter into details. I had but a glance, 
and then turned quickly away, but I would not have been looking at 
all if I had known what was coming. No, that is probably not true ; 
one thinks he would not look if he knew what was coming, but the 
interest and the excitement are so powerful that they would doubtless 
conquer all other feelings ; and so, under the fierce exhilaration of the 
clashing steel, he would yield and look, after all. Sometimes spectators 
of these duels faint, and it does seem a very reasonable thing to do, too. 
Both parties to this fourth duel were badly hurt ; so much so that 
the surgeon was at work upon them nearly or quite an hour — a fact 
which is suggestive. But this waiting interval was not wasted in idle- 
ness by the assembled students. It was past noon; therefore they 
ordered their landlord, downstairs, to send up hot beefsteaks, chickens, 
and such things, and these they ate, sitting comfortably at the several 
tables, whilst they chatted, disputed, and laughed. The door to the 
surgeon's room stood open, meantime, but the cutting, sewing, splicing, 



>^v 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 43 

and bandaging going on in there in plain view, did not seem to disturb 
anyone's appetite. I went in and saw the surgeon labour awhile, but 
could not enjoy it ; it was much less trying to see the wounds given and 
received than to see them mended ; the stir and turmoil, and the music 
of the steel were wanting here — one's nerves were wrung by this grisly 
spectacle, whilst the duel's compensating pleasurable thrill was lacking. 

Finally the doctor finished, and the men who were to fight the 
closing battle of the day came forth. A good many dinners were not 
completed yet, but no matter, they could be eaten cold after the battle ; 
therefore everybody crowded forward to see. This was not a love 
duel, but a ' satisfaction ' affair. These two students had quarrelled, 
and were here to settle it. They did not belong to any of the corps, 
but they were furnished with weapons and armour, and permitted 
to fight here by the five corps as a courtesy. Evidently these two 
young men were unfamiliar with the duelling ceremonies, though they 
were not unfamiliar with the sword. When they were placed in 
position, they thought it was time to begin — and they did begin, too, 
and with a most impetuous energy, without waiting for anybody to 
give the word. This vastly amused the spectators, and even broke 
down their studied and courtly gravity, and surprised them into 
laughter. Of course the seconds struck up the swords and started the 
duel over again. At the word, the deluge of blows began, but before 
long the surgeon once more interfered — for the only reason which ever 
permits him to interfere — and the day's war was over. It was now 
two in the afternoon, and I had been present since half-past nine in the 
morning. The field of battle was indeed a red one by this time ; 
but some sawdust soon righted that. There had been one duel before 
I arrived. In it one of the men received many injuries, while the 
other one escaped without a scratch. 

I had seen the heads and faces of ten youths gashed in every direc- 
tion by the keen two-edged blades, and yet had not seen a victim wince, 
nor heard a moan, or detected any fleeting expression which confessed 
the sharp pain the hurts were inflicting. This was good fortitude 
indeed. Such endurance is to be expected in savages and prize-fighters, 
for they are born and educated to it ; but to find it in such perfec- 
tion in these gently bred and kindly nurtured young fellows is matter 
for surprise. It was not merely under the excitement of the sword- 



44 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

play that this fortitude was shown ; it was shown in the surgeon's 
room, where an uninspiring quiet reigned, and where there was no 
audience. The doctor's manipulations brought out neither grimaces 
nor moans ; and in the fights it was observable that these lads hacked 
and slashed with the same tremendous spirit, after they were covered 
with streaming wounds, which they had shown in the beginning. 

The world in general looks upon the college duels as very farcical 
affairs : true, but considering that the college duel is fought by boys, 
that the swords are real swords, and that the head and face are ex- 
posed, it seems to me that it is a farce which has quite a grave side to 
it. People laugh at it mainly because they think the student is so 
covered up with armour that he cannot be hurt. But it is not so ; 
his eyes and ears are protected, but the rest of his face and head is 
bare. He can not only be badly wounded, but his life is in danger, and 
lie would sometimes lose it but for the interference of the surgeon. 
It is not intended that his life shall be endangered. Fatal accidents 
a/e possible, however. For instance, the student's sword may break, 
and the end of it fly up behind his antagonist's ear and cut an artery 
which could not be reached if the sword remained whole. This has 
happened sometimes, and death has resulted on the spot. Formerly the 
student's armpits were not protected — and at that time the swords were 
pointed, whereas they are blunt now — so an artery in the armpit was 
sometimes cut, and death followed. Then, in the days of sharp-pointed 
swords, a spectator was an occasional victim ; the end of a broken 
sword flew five or ten feet and buried itself in his neck or his heart, 
and death ensued instantly. The student duels in Germany occasion 
two or three deaths every year now, but this arises only from the care- 
lessness of the wounded men ; they eat or drink imprudently, or com- 
mit excesses in the way of over- exertion; inflammation sets in, and 
gets such a headway that it cannot be arrested. Indeed there is blood 
and pain and danger enough about the college duel to entitle it to a 
considerable degree of respect. 

All the customs, all the laws, all the details pertaining to the student 
duel are quaint and na'ive. The grave, precise, and courtly ceremony 
with which the thing is conducted, invests it with a sort of antique 
charm . 

This dignity and these knightly graces suggest the tournament, 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 45 

not the prize-fight. The laws are as curious as they are strict. For 
instance, the duellist may step forward from the line he is placed upon, 
if he chooses, but never back of it. If he steps back of it, or even 
leans back, it is considered that he did it to avoid a blow or contrive 
an advantage, so he is dismissed from his corps in disgrace. It would 
seem but natural to step from under a descending sword unconsciously, 
and against one's will and intent, yet this unconsciousness is not allowed. 
Again, if, under the sudden anguish of a wound, the receiver of it 
makes a grimace, he falls some degrees in the estimation of his fellows ; 
his corps are ashamed of him, they call him ' hare-foot,' which is the 
German equivalent for chicken-hearted. 



46 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER VII. 

In addition to the corps laws, there are some corps usages which have 
the force of laws. 

Perhaps the president of a corps notices that one of the member- 
ship who is no longer an exempt — that is, a freshman — has remained 
a sophomore some little time without volunteering to fight; some 
day, the president, instead of calling for volunteers, will appoint this 
sophomore to measure swords with a student of another corps ; he is 
free to decline — everybody says so — there is no compulsion. This is 
all true — but I have not heard of any student who did decline. ■ He 
would naturally rather retire from the corps than decline ; to decline, 
and still remain in the corps, would make him unpleasantly con- 
spicuous, and properly so, since he knew, when he joined, that his 
main business, as a member, would be to fight. No, there is no law 
against declining — except the law of custom, which is confessedly 
stronger than written law, everywhere. 

The ten men whose duels I had witnessed did not go away when 
their hurts were dressed, as I had supposed they would, but came 
back, one after another, as soon as they were free of the sur -eon, and 
mingled with the assemblage in the duelling room. The lite cap 
student who won the second fight witnessed the remaining ■ ree, and 
talked with us duriDg the intermissions. He could not talk /ery well, 
because his opponent's sword had cut his under lip in two, and then 
the surgeon had sewed it together and overlaid it with a profusion of 
white plaister patches ; neither could he eat easily, still he contrived to 
accomplish a slow and troublesome luncheon while the last duel was 
preparing. The man who was the worst hurt of all played chess while 
waiting to see this engagement. A good part of his face waT covered 
with patches and bandages, and all the rest of his head was cover 3d 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



47 




^IfcmfaL— 



and concealed by them. It is said that the student likes to appear on 

the street and in other public places in this kind of array, and that this 

predilection often keeps him out 

when exposure to rain or sun 

is a positive danger for him. ,/a 

Newly bandaged students are a j/j 

very common spectacle in the 

public gardens of Heidelberg. 

It is also said that the student 

is glad to get wounds in the 

face ; because the scars they 

leave will show so well there ; 

and it is also said that these face 

wounds are so prized that 

youths have even been known 

to pull them apart from time to time and put red wine in them, to make 

them heal badly and leave as ugly a scar as possible. It does not 

look reasonable, but it is roundly 



asserted and maintained, never- 
theless. I am sure of one thing 
— scars are plenty enough in 
Germany among the young 
men ; and very grim ones they 
are, too. They criss-cross the 
face in angry red welts, and 
are permanent and inefface- 
able. Seme of these scars are 
of a ver ' strange and dreadful 
aspect ; i A the effect is striking 
when several such accent the 
milder ones, which form a city 
map on a man's face ; they suggest the * burned district ' then. 

We had often noticed that many of the students wore a coloured 
silk band or riband diagonally across their breasts. 1 It transpired that 

1 From my Diary. — Dined in an hotel a few miles up the Neckar, in a 
room whos,e walls were hung all over with framed portrait -groups of the Five 
Corps ; soi .e were recent, but many antedated photography, and were pictured 




FAVOURITE STREET COSTUMES. 



48 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



this signifies that the wearer has fought three duels in which a decision 
was reached — duels in which he either whipped or was whipped — for 
drawn battles do not count. After a student has received his riband, 
he is 'free;' he can cease from fighting, without reproach — except 
some one insult him ; his president cannot appoint him to fight ; he can 

volunteer if he wants to, or re- 
main quiescent if he prefers to 
do so. Statistics show that he 
does not prefer to remain quies- 
cent. They show that the duel 
has a singular fascination about 
it somewhere, for these free 
men, so far from resting upon 
the privilege of the badge, are 
always volunteering. A corps 
student told me it was on record 
that Prince Bismarck fought 
thirty-two of these duels in a 
single summer term when he was 
in college. So he fought twenty- 
nine after his badge had given 
him the right to retire from the field. 

The statistics may be found to possess interest in several particulars. 
Two days in every week are devoted to duelling. The rule is rigid 
that there must be three duels on each of these days; there are 
generally more, but there cannot be fewer. There were six the day 
I was present ; sometimes there are seven or eight. It is insisted that 
eight duels a week — four for each of the two days — is too low an average 
to draw a calculation from, but I will reckon from that basis, preferring 
an under-statement to an over-statement of the case. This requires 
about 480 or 500 duellists in a year — for in summer the college term 
is about three and a half months, and in winter it is four months and 
sometimes longer. Of the 750 students in the university at the time I 

in lithography — the dates ranged back to forty or fifty years ago. Nearly 
every individual wore the riband across his breast. In one portrait-group, 
representing (as each of these pictures did) an entire Corps, I took pains to 
count the ribands: there were twenty-seven members, and twenty-one of 
them wore that significant badge. 




INEFFACEABLE SCARS. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 49 

am writing of, only eighty belonged to the five corps, and it is only 
these corps that do the duelling ; occasionally other students borrow 
the arms and battle-ground of the five corps in order to settle a quarrel, 
but this does not happen every duelling day. 1 Consequently eighty 
youths furnish the material for some 250 duels a year. This average 
gives six fights a year to each of the eighty. This large work could 
not be accomplished if the badge-holders stood upon their privilege 
and ceased to volunteer. 

Of course, where there is so much fighting, the students make 
it a point to keep themselves in constant practice with the foil. One 
often sees them, at the tables in the Castle grounds, using their whips 
or canes to illustrate some new sword trick which they have heard 
about ; and between the duels, on the day whose history I have been 
writing, the swords were not always idle; every now and then we 
heard a succession of the keen hissing sounds which the sword makes 
when it is being put through its paces in the air, and this informed us 
that a student was practising. Necessarily this unceasing attention 
to the art develops an expert occasionally. He becomes famous in his 
own university, his renown spreads to other universities. He is in- 
vited to Gottingen, to fight with a Gottingen expert; if he is victorious, 
he will be invited to other colleges, or those colleges will send their 
experts to him. Americans and Englishmen often join one or another 
of the five corps. A year or two ago, the principal Heidelberg expert 
was a big Kentuckian; he was invited to the various universities, 
and left a wake of victory behind him all about Germany'; but at 
last a little student in Strasburg defeated him. There was formerly a 
student in Heidelberg who had picked up somewhere and mastered a 
peculiar trick of cutting up under instead of cleaving down from above. 
While the trick lasted he won in sixteen successive duels in his own 
university ; but by that time observers had discovered what his charm 
was, and how to break it, therefore his championship ceased. 

The rule which forbids social intercourse between members of 
different corps is strict. In the duelling house, in the parks, on the 

1 They have to borrow the arms because they could not get them elsewhere 
or otherwise. As I understand it, the public authorities, all over Germany, 
allow the five corps to keep swords, but do not allow them to use them. This 
law is rigid ; it is only the execution of it that is lax. 



50 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



street, and anywhere and everywhere that students go, caps of a colour 
group themselves together. If all the tables in a public garden were 
crowded but one, and that one had two red-cap students at it and 
ten vacant places, the yellow caps, the blue caps, the white caps, and 
the green caps, seeking seats, would go by that table and not seem 
to see it, nor seem to be aware that there was such a table in the 
grounds. The student by whose courtesy we had been enabled to 
visit the duelling place wore the white cap — Prussian 
Corps. He introduced us to many white caps, but to 
none of another colour. The corps etiquette extended 
even to us, who were strangers, and required us to group 
with the white corps only, and speak only with the white 
corps, while we were their guests, and keep aloof from 
caps of the other colours. Once I wished to examine 
some of the swords, but an American student said, ' It 
would not be quite polite; these now in the windows 
all have red hilts or blue ; they will bring in some with 
white hilts presently, and those you can handle freely.' 
When a sword was broken in the first duel, I wanted a 
piece of it ; but its hilt was the wrong colour, so it was 
considered best and politest to await a proper er season. 
It was brought to me after the room was cleared, and I 
will now make a ' life-size ' sketch of it by tracing a line 
around it with my pen, to show the width of the weapon. 
The length of these swords is about three feet, and they are 
quite heavy. One's disposition to cheer, during the course 
of the duels or at their close, was naturally strong, but 
corps etiquette forbade any demonstrations of this sort. 
However brilliant a contest or a victory might be, no 
sign or sound betrayed that anyone was moved. A 
dignified gravity and repression were maintained at all 
times. 

piece op When the duelling was finished and we were ready 

to go, the gentlemen of the Prussian Corps to whom we 

had been introduced took off their caps in the courteous German way, 

and also shook hands ; their brethren of the same order took off their 

caps and bowed, but without shaking hands; the gentlemen of the- 




A TRAMP ABROAD. 51 

other corps treated us just as they would have treated white caps — 
they fell apart, apparently unconsciously, and left us an unobstructed 
pathway, but did not seem to see us or know we were there. If we 
had gone thither the following week as guests of another corps, the 
white caps, without meaning any offence, would have observed the 
etiquette of their order, and ignored our presence. 1 

1 How strangely are comedy and tragedy blended in this life I I had 
not been home a full half -hour after witnessing those playful sham-duels, when 
circumstances made it necessary for me to get ready immediately to assist 
personally at a real one — a duel with no effeminate limitations in the matter 
of results, but a battle to the death. An account of it, in the next chapter, will 
show the reader that duels between boys for fun and duels between men 
in earnest are very different affairs. 



w I 



62 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE GREAT FRENCH DUEL. 

Much as the modern French duel is ridiculed by certain smart people, 
it is in reality one of the most dangerous institutions of our day. 
Since it is always fought in the open air, the combatants are nearly 
sure to catch cold. M. Paul de Cassagnac, the most inveterate of the 
French duellists, has suffered so often in this way that he is at last 
a confirmed invalid ; and the best physician in Paris has expressed 
the opinion that if he goes on duelling for fifteen or twenty years 
more — unless he forms the habit of fighting in a comfortable room 
where damps and draughts cannot intrude — he will eventually endanger 
his life. This ought to moderate the talk of those people who are 
so stubborn in maintaining that the French duel is the most health- 
giving of recreations because of the open-air exercise it affords. And 
it ought also to moderate that foolish talk about French duellists 
and socialist-hated monarchs being the only people who are immortal. 

But it is time to get at my subject. As soon as I heard of the 
late fiery outbreak between M. Gambetta and M. Fourtou in the French 
Assembly, I knew that trouble must follow. I knew it because a long 
personal friendship with M. Gambetta had revealed to me the despe- 
rate and implacable nature of the man. Vast as are his physical 
proportions, I knew that the thirst for revenge would penetrate to the 
remotest frontiers of his person. 

I did not wait for him to call on me, but went at once to him. As 
I expected, I found the brave fellow steeped in a profound French 
calm. I say French calm, because French calmness and English calm- 
ness have points of difference. He was moving swiftly back and 
forth among the debris of his furniture, now and then staving chance 
fragments of it across the room with his foot ; grinding a constant grist 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



53 



of curses through his set teeth; and halting every little while to 
deposit another handful of his hair on the pile which he had been 
building of it on the table. 

He threw his arms around my neck, bent me over his stomach to his 
breast, kissed me on both cheeks, hugged me four or five times, and 
then placed me in his own arm-chair. 
As soon as I had got well again, we 
began business at once. 

I said I supposed he would wish 
me to act as his second, and he said, 
' Of course.' I said I must be al- 
lowed to act under a French name, 
so that I might be shielded from 
obloquy in my country, in case of 
fatal results. He winced here, pro- 
bably at the suggestion that duelling 
was not regarded with respect in 
America. However, he agreed to my: 
requirement. This accounts for the — 
fact that in all the newspaper reports 
M. Gambetta's second was apparently French calm. 
a Frenchman. 

First, we drew up my principal's will. I insisted upon this, and 
stuck to my point. I said I had never heard of a man in his right mind 
going out to fight a duel without first making his will. He said he had 
never heard of a man in his right mind doing anything of the kind. 
When he had finished the will, he wished to proceed to a choice of his 
' last words.' He wanted to know how the following words, as a dying 
exclamation, struck me : — 

I I die for my God, for my country, for freedom of speech, for 
progress, and the universal brotherhood of man ! ' 

I objected that this would require too lingering a death ; it was a 
good speech for a consumptive, but not suited to the exigencies of the 
field of honour. We wrangled over a good many ante-mortem out- 
bursts, but I finally got him to cut his obituary down to this, which he 
copied into his memorandum book, purposing to get it by heart : — 

*I DIE THAT FRANCE MAY LIVE.' 




W/.ft 



54 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



I said that this remark seemed to lack relevancy ; but he said rele- 
vancy was a matter of no consequence in last words — what you wanted 
was thrill. 

The next thing in order was the choice of weapons. My principal 
said he was not feeling well, and would leave that and the other 
details of the proposed meeting to me. Therefore I wrote the follow- 
ing note and carried it to M. Fourtou's friend : — 

1 Sir, — M. Gambetta accepts M. Fourtou's challenge, and authorises 
me to propose Plessis-Piquet as the place of meeting; to-morrow 
morning at daybreak as the time ; and axes as the weapons. I am, 
sir, with great respect, Mark Twain.' 

M. Fourtou's friend read this note, and shuddered. Then he 
turned to me, and said, with a sugges- 
tion of severity in his tone — 

' Have you considered, sir, what 
would be the inevitable result of such 
a meeting as this ? ' 

1 Well, for instance, what would it 
be?' 

1 Bloodshed ! ' 

1 That's about the size of it,' I said. 
1 Now, if it is a fair question, what 
was your side proposing to shed ? ' 

I had him there. He saw he had 
made a blunder, so he hastened to explain it away. He said he had 
spoken jestingly. Then he added that he and his principal would 
enjoy axes, and indeed prefer them, but such weapons were barred by 
the French code, and so I must change my proposal. 

I walked the floor, turning the thing over in my mind, and finally 
it occurred to me that Gatling guns at fifteen paces would be a likely 
way to get a verdict on the field of honour. So I framed this idea 
into a proposition. 

But it was not accepted. The code was in the way again. I 
proposed rifles ; then double-barrelled shot-guns ; then Colt's navy 
revolvers. These being all rejected, I reflected a while, and sarcas- 
tically suggested brick-bats at three-quarters of a mile. I always hate 
to fool away a humorous thing on a person who has no perception of 




THE CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



55 



humour ; and it filled me with bitterness when this man went soberly 
away to submit the last proposition to his principal. 

He came back presently and said his principal was charmed with 
the idea of brick-bats at three-quarters of a mile, but must decline on 
account of the danger to disinterested parties passing between. Then 
I said — 

1 Well, I am at the end of my string now. 
Perhaps you would be good enough to suggest a 
weapon ? Perhaps you have even had one in your 
mind all the time ? ' 

His countenance brightened, and he said with 
alacrity — 

1 Oh, without doubt, monsieur ! ' 

So he fell to hunting in his pockets — pocket after 
pocket, and he had plenty of them — muttering all 
the while, ' Now, what could I have done with 
them ? ' 

At last he was successful. He fished out of his 
vest pocket a couple of little things which I carried 
to the light and ascertained to be pistols. They 
were single-barrelled and silver-mounted, and very 
dainty and pretty. I was not able to speak for emotion. I silently 
hung one of them on my watch-chain, and returned the other. My 
companion in crime now unrolled a postage-stamp containing several 
cartridges, and gave me one of them. I asked if he meant to signify 
by this that our men were to be allowed but one shot apiece. He 
replied that the French code permitted no more. I then begged 
him to go on and suggest a distance, for my mind was growing weak 
and confused under the strain which had been put upon it. He named 
sixty-five yards. I nearly lost my patience. I said — 

1 Sixty-five yards, with these instruments ? Squirt-guns would be 
deadlier at fifty. Consider, my friend, you and I are banded toge- 
ther to destroy life, not make it eternal.' 

But with all my persuasions, all my arguments, I was only able to 
get him to reduce the distance to thirty-five yards ; and even this 
concession he made with reluctance, and said with a sigh — 

f I wash my hands of this slaughter ; on your head be it.' 




A SEARCH. 



56 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 




There was nothing for me but to go home to my old lion-hearc 
and tell my humiliating story. When I entered, M. Gambetta was 
laying his last lock of hair upon the altar. He sprang towards me, 
exclaiming — 

1 You have made the fatal arrangements — I see it in your eye ! ' 
* I have.' 

His face paled a trifle, and he 
leaned upon the table for support. 
He breathed thick and heavily for 
a moment or two, so tumultuous 
were his feelings ; then he hoarse- 
ly whispered — 
he swooned ponderously. ' The weapon, the weapon ! 

Quick ! what is the weapon ? ' 
1 This ! ' and I displayed that silver-mounted thing. He cast 
but one glance at it, then swooned ponderously to the floor. 
When he came to, he said mournfully — 

1 The unnatural calm to which I have subjected myself has told 
upon my nerves. But away with weakness ! I will confront my fate 
like a man and a Frenchman.' 

He rose to his feet, and assumed an attitude which for sublimity 
has never been approached by man, and has seldom been surpassed by 
statues. Then he said, in his deep bass tones — 

1 Behold, I am calm, I 
am ready, reveal to me the 
distance.' 

' Thirty-five yards.' . . 
. I could not lift him up, 
of course; but I rolled 
him over, and poured 
water down his back. He 
presently came to, and 
said — 

' Thirty-five yards — without a rest ? But why ask ? Since murder 
was that man's intention, why should he palter with small details ? But 
mark you one thing : in my fall the world shall see how the chivalry 
of France meets death.' 




I ROLLED HIM OVER. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 57 

After a long silence he asked — 

1 Was nothing said about that man's family standing up with him, 
as an offset to my bulk ? But no matter ; I would not stoop to 
make such a suggestion ; if he is not noble enough to suggest it him- 
self, he is welcome to this advantage, which no honourable man 
would take.' 

He now sank into a sort of stupor of reflection, which lasted some 
minutes ; after which he broke silence with — 

1 The hour — what is the hour fixed for the collision ? ' 

' Dawn, to-morrow.' 

He seemed greatly surprised, and immediately said — ■ 

1 Insanity ! I never heard of such a thing. Nobody is abroad at 
such an hour.' 

' That is the reason I named it. Do you mean to say you want 
an audience ? ' 

1 It is no time to bandy words. I am astonished that M. Fourtou 
should ever have agreed to so strange an innovation. Go at once 
and require a later hour.' 

I ran downstairs, threw open the front door, and almost plunged 
into the arms of M. Fourtou's second. He said — 

I I have the honour to say that my principal strenuously objects to 
the hour chosen, and begs you will consent to change it to half-past 
nine.' 

' Any courtesy, sir, which it is in our power to extend is at the 
service of your excellent principal. We agree to the proposed change 
of time.' 

1 1 beg you to accept the thanks of my client.' Then he turned 
to a person behind him, and said, ' You hear, M. Noir, the hour is 
altered to half-past nine.' Whereupon M. Noir bowed, expressed 
his thanks, and went away. My accomplice continued — 

' If agreeable to you, your chief surgeons and ours shall pro- 
ceed to the field in the same carriage, as is customary.' 

* It is entirely agreeable to me, and I am obliged to you for men- 
tioning the surgeons, for I am afraid I should not have thought 
of them. How many shall I want ? I suppose two or three will be 
enough.' 

1 Two is the customary number for each party. I refer to " chief" 




58 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

surgeons ; but considering the exalted positions occupied by .our clients, 
it will be well and decorous that each of us appoint several consulting 
surgeons, from among the highest in the profession. These will come 
in their own private carriages. Have you engaged a hearse ? ' 

' Bless my stupidity, I never thought of it ! I will attend to it 
right away, I must seem very ignorant to you ; but you must try 

to overlook that, 
because I have 
never had any ex- 
perience of such a 
swell duel as this 
before. I have had 
a good deal to do 
the oxe i hired. w ith duels on the 

Pacific coast, but I see now that they were crude affairs. A hearse — 
sho ! we used to leave the elected lying around loose, and let anybody 
cord them up and cart them off that wanted to. Have you anything 
further to suggest ? ' 

1 Nothing, except that the head undertakers shall ride together, as is 
usual. The subordinates and mutes will go on foot, as is also usual. 
I will see you at eight o'clock in the morning, and we will then 
arrange the order of the procession. I have the honour to bid you 
a good day.' 

I returned to my client, who said, ' Very well ; at what hour is the 
engagement to begin?' 
' Half-past nine.' 

'Very good indeed. Have you sent the fact to the newspapers?' 
1 Sir! If after our long and intimate friendship you can for a 

moment deem me capable of so base a treachery ' 

1 Tut, tut ! What words are these, my dear friend ? Have I 
wounded you ? Ah, forgive me ; I am overloading you with labour. 
Therefore go on with the other details, and drop this one from your 
list. The bloody-minded Fourtou will be sure to attend to it. Or 
I myself — yes, to make certain, I will drop a note to my journalistic 
friend, M. Noir.' 

1 Oh, come to think, you may save yourself the trouble ; that other 
second has informed M. Noir.' 




THE MARCH TO THE FIELD. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 61 

1 H'm ! I might have known it. It is just like that Fourtou, who 
always wants to make a display.' 

At half-past nine in the morning the procession approached the 
field of Plessis-Piquet in the following order : first came our carriage 
— nobody in it but M. Gambetta and myself; then a carriage con- 
taining M. Fourtou and his second; then a carriage containing two 
poet-orators who did not believe in God, and these had MS. funeral 
orations projecting from their breast-pockets; then a carriage con- 
taining the head surgeons and their cases of instruments ; then eight 
private carriages containing consulting surgeons ; then a hack contain- 
ing a coroner ; then the two hearses ; then a carriage containing the 
head undertakers; then a train of assistants and mutes on foot; 
and after these came plodding through the fog a long procession of 
camp followers, police, and citizens generally. It was a noble turn-out, 
and would have made a fine display if we had had thinner weather. 

There was no conversation. I spoke several times to my principal, 
but I judge he was not aware of it, for he always referred to his 
note-book and muttered absently, ' I die that France may live.' 

Arrived on the field, my fellow-second and I paced off the thirty- 
five yards, and then drew lots for choice of position. This latter was 
but an ornamental ceremony, for all choices were alike in such weather. 
These preliminaries being ended, I went to my principal and asked him 
if he was ready. He spread himself out to his full width, and said in 
a stern voice, ' Eeady ! Let the batteries be charged.' 

The loading was done in the presence of duly constituted wit- 
nesses. We considered it best to perform this delicate service with the 
assistance of a lantern, on account of the state of the weather. We 
now placed our men. 

At this point the police noticed that the public had massed them- 
selves together on the right and left of the field ; they therefore begged 
a delay, while they should put these poor people in a place of safety. 
The request was granted. 

The police having ordered the two multitudes to take positions 
behind the duellists, we were once more ready. The weather growing 
still more opaque, it was agreed between myself and the other second 
that before giving the fatal signal we should each deliver a loud 
whoop to enable the combatants to ascertain each other's whereabouts. 



62 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



1 now returned to my principal, and was distressed to observe that 
he had lost a good deal of his spirit. I tried my best to hearten 
him. I said, ' Indeed, sir, things are not as bad as they seem. Con- 
sidering the character of the weapons, the limited number of shots 
allowed, the generous distance, the impenetrable solidity of the fog, and 
the added fact that one of the combatants is one-eyed and the other 
cross-eyed and near-sighted, it seems to me that this conflict need not 
necessarily be fatal. There are chances that both, of you may survive. 
Therefore cheer up ; do not be down-hearted.' 

This speech had so good an effect that my principal immediately 
stretched forth his hand and said, ' I am myself again ; give me the 
weapon.' 

I laid it, all lonely and forlorn, in the centre of the vast solitude of 
his palm. He gazed at it and shuddered. And still mournfully 
contemplating it, he murmured, in a broken voice — 
' Alas ! it is not death I dread, but mutilation.' 

I heartened him once more, and 
with such success that he present- 
ly said, 'Let the tragedy begin. 
Stand at my back; do not desert 
me in this solemn hour, my friend.' 
I gave him my promise. I 
now assisted him to point his 
pistol towards the spot where I 
judged his adversary to be stand- 
ing, and cautioned him to listen 
well and further guide himself by 
my fellow-second's whoop. Then 
I propped myself against M. Gambetta's back, and raised a rousing 
1 Whoop-ee ! ' This was answered from out the far distances of the 
fog, and I immediately shouted — 
1 One, — two, — three, — fire ! ' 

Two little sounds like spit 1 spit ! broke upon my ear, and in the 
same instant I was crushed to the earth under a mountain of flesh. 
Bruised as I was, I was still able to catch a faint accent from above, to 
this effect — 




v/f-S 



'hAV^. 



THE POST OF DANGER. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 63 

1 1 die for . . . for . . . perdition take it, what is it I die for ? . . . 
oh, yes, — France ! I die that France may live ! ' 

The surgeons swarmed around with their probes in their hands, 
and applied their microscopes to the whole area of ^L Gambetta's 
person, with the happy result of finding nothing in tfhe nature of a 
wound. Then a scene ensued which was in every way gratifying and 
inspiriting. 

The two gladiators fell upon each other's necks, with floods of 
proud and happy tears ; that other second embraced me ; the surgeons,, 
the orators, the undertakers, the police, everybody embraced, every- 




THE RECONCILIATION. 

body congratulated, everybody cried, and the whole atmosphere was 
filled with praise and with joy unspeakable. 

It seemed to me then that I would rather be a hero of a French 
duel than a crowned and sceptred monarch. 

When the commotion had somewhat subsided, the body of surgeons 
held a consultation, and after a good deal of debate decided that with 
proper care and nursing there was reason to believe that I would 
survive my injuries. My internal hurts were deemed the most 
serious, since it was apparent that a broken rib had penetrated my 
left lung, and that many of my organs had been pressed out so far 



64 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



to one side or the other of where they belonged, that it was doubt- 
ful if they would ever learn to perform their functions in such re- 
mote and unaccustomed localities. They then set my left arm in two 
places, pulled my right hip into its socket again, and re-elevated my 
nose. I was an object of great interest, and even admiration ; and 
many sincere and warm-hearted persons had themselves introduced to 
me, and said they were proud to know the only man who had beeD 
hurt in a French duel in forty years. 

I was placed in an ambulance at the very head of the procession ; 
and thus with gratifying eclat I was marched into Paris, the most con- 
spicuous figure in that great spectacle, and deposited at the hospital. 



'(^^Sprpjm 




AN OBJECT OF ADM1KATI0N. 



The Cross of the Legion of Honour has been conferred upon me. 
However, few escape that distinction. 

Such is the true version of the most memorable private conflict of 

the age. 

I have no complaints to make against anyone. I acted for myself, 
and I can stand the consequences. Without boasting, I think I may 
say I am not afraid to stand before a modern French duellist, but as 
long as I keep in my right mind I will never consent to stand behind 
one again. 



A TRAMP ABROAD 



CHAPTER IX. 

One day we took the train and went down to Mannheim to see ; King 
Lear ' played in German. It was a mistake. We sat in our seats 
three whole hours, and never understood anything but the thunder and 
lightning ; and even that was reversed to suit German ideas, for the 
thunder came first and the lightning followed after. 

The behaviour of the audience was perfect. There were no rust- 
lings, or whisperings, or other little disturbances ; each act was 
listened to in silence, and the applauding was done after the eurtain 
was down. The doors opened at half-past four, the play began promptly 
at half-past five, and within two minutes afterwards all who were 
coming were in their seats, and quiet reigned. A German gentleman 
in the train had said that a Shakespearian play was an appreciated 
treat in Germany, and that we should find the house filled. It was 
true ; all the six tiers were filled, and remained so to the end — which 
suggested that it is not only balcony people who like Shakespeare 
in Germany, but those of the pit and the gallery too. 

Another time, we went to Mannheim and attended a shivaree 
— otherwise an opera — the one called 'Lohengrin.' The banging and 
slamming and booming and crashing were something beyond belief. 
The racking and pitiless pain of it remains stored up in my memory 
alongside the memory of the time that 1 had my teeth fixed. There 
were circumstances which made it necessary for me to stay through the 
four hours to the end, and I stayed ; but the recollection of that long, 
dragging, relentless season of suffering is indestructible. To have to 
endure it in silence, and sitting still, made it all the harder. I was in 
a railed compartment with eight or ten strangers, of the two sexes, and 
this compelled repression ; yet at times the pain was so exquisite that 
I could hardly keep the tears back. At those times, as the howling 

F 



66 



A TRA3IP ABROAD. 




WAGNER. 



and wailings and shriekings of the singers, and the ragings and roarings 

and explosions of the vast orchestra, rose higher and higher, and wilder 

and wilder, and fiercer and 
fiercer, I could have cried if I 
had been alone. Those stran- 
gers would not have been sur- 
prised to see a man do such a 
thing who was being gradually 
skinned, but they would have 
marvelled at it here, and made 
remarks about it no doubt, 
whereas there was nothing in 
the present case which was an 
advantage over being sMnned. 
There was a wait of half an 
hour at the end of the first act,, 
and I could have gone out and 

rested during that time, but I could not trust myself to do it, for I felt 

that I should desert and stay out. There was another wait of half an 

hour towards nine o'clock, but I had gone 

through so much by that time that I had 

no spirit left, and so had no desire but to 

be let alone. 

I do not wish to suggest that the rest of 

the people there were like me, for indeed 

they were not. Whether it was that they 

naturally liked that noise, or whether it was 

that they had learned to like it 'by getting 

used to it, I did not at that time know ; but 

they did like it, — this was plain enough. 

While it was going on they sat and looked 

as rapt and grateful as cats do when one 

strokes their backs; and whenever the curtain fell they rose to their 

feet, in one solid mighty multitude, and the air was snowed thick with 

waving handkerchiefs, and hurricanes of applause swept the place. 

This was not comprehensible to me. Of course there were many 

people there who were not under compulsion to stay ; yet the tiers 







A TRAMP ABROAD. 



07 




ROARING. 



were as full at the close as they had been at the beginning. This 
showed that the people liked it. 

It was a curious sort of a 
play. In the matter of costumes 
and scenery it was fine and 
showy enough ; but there was 
not much action. That is to 
say, there was not much really 
done, it was only talked about ; 
and always violently. It was 
what one might call a narrative 
play. Everybody had a narra- 
tive and a grievance, and none 
were reasonable about it, but all 
in an offensive and ungovern- 
able state. There was little of 
that sort of customary thing 
where the tenor and the soprano stand down by the footlights, warbling, 
with blended voices, and keep holding out their arms towards each 
other and drawing them back and spreading both hands over first one 
t U :.nd then the other with a shake and 
a pressure — no, it was every rioter for himself 
and no blending. Each sang his indictive 
narrative in turn, accompanied by the whole 
orchestra of sixty instruments ; and when this 
had continued for some time, and one was 
hoping they might come to an understand- 
ing and modify the noise, a great chorus 
composed entirely of maniacs would suddenly 
break forth, and then during two minutes, and 
sometimes three, I lived over again all that I 
had suffered the time the orphan asylum 
burned down. shrieking. 

We only had one brief little season of heaven and heaven's sweet 
ecstasy and peace during all this long and diligent and acrimonious re- 
production of the other place. This was while a gorgeous procession 
of people marched around and around, in the third act, and sang the 

f2 




6S 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Wedding Chorus. To my untutored ear that was music — almost divine 
music. While my seared soul was steeped in the healing balm of 
those gracious sounds, it seemed to me that I could almost re-suffer the 
torments which had gone before, in order to be so healed again. 
There is where the deep ingenuity of the operatic idea is betrayed. It 
deals so largely in pain that its scattered delights are prodigiously 
augmented by the contrasts. A pretty air in an opera is prettier there 




A CUSTOMARY THING. 



than it could be anywhere else, I suppose, just as an honest man in 
politics shines more than he would elsewhere. 

I have since found out that there is nothing the Germans like so 
much as an opera. They like it, not in a mild and moderate way, 
but with their whole hearts. This is a legitimate result of habit and 
education. Our nation will like the opera, too, by-and-by, no doubt. 
One in fifty of those who attend our operas likes it already, perhaps, 
but I think a good many of the other forty-nine go in order to learn to 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



69 




like it, and the rest in order to be able to talk knowingly about it. 

The latter usually hum the airs while they are being sung, so that 

their neighbours may perceive that 
they have been to operas before. 
The funerals of these do not occur 
often enough. 

A gentle, old-maidish person 
and a sweet young girl of seven- 
teen sat right in front of us that 
night at the Mannheim opera. 
These people talked between the 
acts, and I understood them, 
though I understood nothing that 
was uttered on the distant stage. 
At first they were guarded in their 

ONE OF THE REST. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^^ my 

agent and me conversing 
in English they dropped 
their reserve, and I picked 
up many of their little 
confidences ; no, I mean 
many of her little con- 
fidences — meaning the 
elder party — for the 
young girl only listened, 
and gave assenting nods, 
but never said a word. 
How pretty she was, and 
how sweet she was ! I 
wished she would speak. 
But evidently she was 
absorbed in her own 
thoughts, her own young- 
girl dreams, and found a 
dearer pleasure in silence. 
But she was not dream- 
ing sleepy dreams — no, a contribution box. 




70 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



she was awake, alive, alert; she could not sit still a moment. She was 
an enchanting study. Her gown was of a soft white silky stuff that 
clung to her round young figure like a fish's skin, and it was rippled 
over with the gracefullest little fringy films of lace ; she had deep, 
tender eyes, with long, curved lashes ; and she had peachy cheeks, and 
a dimpled chin, and such a dear little dewy rosebud of a mouth ; and 
she was so dove-like, so pure, and so gracious, so sweet and bewitching. 
For long hours I did mightily wish she would speak. And at last she 
did ; the red lips parted, and out leaped her thought, and with such a 
guileless and pretty enthusiasm too : ' Auntie, I just know I've got 
five hundred fleas on me ! ' 

That was probably over the average. Yes, it must have been very 
much over the average. The average at that time in the Grand 

Duchy of Baden was forty-five to a 
young person (when alone), according 
to the official estimate of the Home 
Secretary for that year ; the average for 
older people was shifty and indetermin- 
able, for whenever a wholesome young 
girl came into the presence of her elders 
she immediately lowered their average 
and raised her own. She became a sort 
of contribution-box. This dear young 
thing in the theatre had been sitting 
there unconsciously taking up a collec- 
tion. Many a skinny old being in our 
neighbourhood was the happier and the 
restfuller for her coming. 

In that large audience, that night, 
there were eight very conspicuous people. 
These were ladies who had their hats or 
bonnets on. What a blessed thing it would be if a lady could make 
herself conspicuous in our theatres by wearing her hat ! It is not 
usual in Europe to allow ladies and gentlemen to take bonnets, hats, 
overcoats, canes, or umbrellas into the auditorium, but in Mannheim 
this rule was not enforced because the audiences were largely made 
up of people from a distance, and among these were always a few 




CUNSl-'lCLuUi 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



71 



timid ladies who were afraid that if they had to go into an ante-room to 
get their things when the play was over, they would miss their train. 
But the great mass of those who came a distance always ran the risk and 
took the chances, preferring the loss of the train to a breach of good 
manners and the discomfort of being unpleasantly conspicuous during a 
hi retch of three or four hours. 



•&VZ 




A YOU.NU BEAUTY. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER X. 

Three or four hours ! That is a long time to sit in one place, whether 
one be conspicuous or not, yet some of Wagner's operas bang along f«>r 
six whole hours on a stretch ! But the people sit there and enjoy it ;»ll r 
and wish it would last longer. A German lady in Munich told me that 
a person could not like Wagner's music at first, but must go through 
the deliberate process of learning to like it — then he would have his- 
sure reward ; for when he had learned to like it he would hunger for 
it and never be able to get enough of it. She said that six hours of 
Wagner was by no means too much. She said that this composer 
had made a complete revolution in music, and was burying the old 
masters one by one. And she said that Wagner's operas differed from 
all others in one notable respect, and that was that they were not 
merely spotted with music here and there, but were all music, from the 
first strain to the last. This surprised me. I said I had attended one 
of his insurrections, and found hardly any music in it except the 
Wedding Chorus. She said ' Lohengrin ' was noisier than Wagner's 
other operas, but that if I would keep on going to see it I would find 
by-and-by that it was all music, and therefore would then enjoy it. 
I could have said, ' But would you advise a person to deliberately 
practise having the toothache in the pit of his stomach for a couple of 
3'ears in order that he might then come to enjoy it ? ' But I reserved, 
that remark. 

This lady was full of the praises of the head-tenor who had per- 
formed in a Wagner opera the night before, and went on to enlarge 
upon his old and prodigious fame, and how many honours had been 
lavished upon him by the princely houses of Germany. Here was 
another surprise. I had attended that very opera, in the person of 
my agent, and had made close and accurate observations. So I said — 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



75 




'Why, madam, my experience warrants me in stating that that 
tenor's voice is not a voice at all, but only a shriek — the shriek of a 
hyena.' 

'That is very true,' she said; 'he cannot 
sing now; it is already many years that he has 
lost his voice, but in other times he sang, yes, 
divinely! So whenever he comes, now, you 
shall see, yes, that the theatre will not hold 
the people. J aw oh I bei Gott ! his voice is 
wunderschon in that past time.' 

I said she was discovering to me a kindly trait 
in the Germans which was worth emulating. I 
said that over the water we were not quite so 
generous ; that with us, when a singer had lost 
his voice and a jumper had lost his legs, these 
parties ceased to draw. I said I had been to the opera in Hanover once 7 
and in Mannheim once, and in Munich (through my authorised agent) 
once, and this large experience had nearly persuaded me that the 
Germans preferred singers who couldn't sing. This was not such 
a very extravagant speech either, for that burly Mannheim tenor's 
praises had been the talk of all Heidelberg for a week before his 
performance took place, yet his voice was like the distressing noise 
which a nail makes when you screech it across a window-pane. 
I said so to Heidelberg friends the next day, and they said, in the 
calmest and simplest way, that that was very true, but that in earlier 
times his voice had been wonderfully fine. And the tenor in Hanover 
was just another example of this sort. The English-speaking German 
gentleman who went with me to the opera there was brimming with 
enthusiasm over that tenor. He said — 

' Ach Gott ! a great man ! You shall see him. He is so celebrate 
in all Germany ; and he has a pension, yes, from the Government 
He not obliged to sing now, only twice every year; but if he not 
sing twice each year they take him his pension away.' 

Very well, we went. When the renowned old tenor appeared, I got 
a nudge and an excited whisper — 
Now you see him ! ' 

But the ' celebrate ' was an astonishing disappointment to me. If he 




74 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

had been behind a screen I should have supposed they were performing 
a surgical operation on him. I looked at my friend. To my great 
surprise he seemed intoxicated with pleasure, his eyes were dancing 
with eager delight. When the curtain at last fell, he burst into the 
stormiest applause, and kept it up — as did the whole house — until the 
afflictive tenor had come three times before the curtain to make his bow. 
While the glowing enthusiast was swabbing the perspiration from his 
face, I said — 

1 1 don't mean the least harm, but really, now, do you think he 
can sing? ' 

' Him ! No ! Gott im Himmel, aber, how he has been able to sing 
twenty-five years ago!' [Then pensively.] ' Ach, no, now he not 
sing any more, he only cry. When he think he sing, now, he not 
sing at all, no ; he only make like a cat which 
is unwell.' 

Where and how did we get the idea that 
the Germans are a stolid, phlegmatic race ? 
In truth, they are widely removed from that, 
They are warm-hearted, emotional, impulsive, 
enthusiastic, their tears come at the mildest 
touch, and it is not hard to move them to 
laughter. They are the very children of 
impulse. We are cold and self-contained, 
compared with the Germans. They hug 
and kiss and cry and shout and dance and 
sing; and where we use one loving, petting expression, they pour out 
a score. Their language is full of endearing diminutives ; nothing that 
they love escapes the application of a petting diminutive — neither the 
house, nor the dog, nor the horse, nor the grandmother, nor any 
other creature, animate or inanimate. 

In the theatres at Hanover, Hamburg, and Mannheim, they had a 
wise custom. The moment the curtain went up, the lights in the body 
of the house went down. The audience sat in the cool gloom of a 
deep twilight, which greatly enhanced the glowing splendours of the 
sta^e. It saved gas, too, and people were not sweated to death. 

When I saw ' King Lear ' played, nobody was allowed to see a scene 
shifted ; if there was nothing to be done but slide a forest out of the 




A TRAMP ABROAD. 75 

way and expose a temple beyond, one did not see that forest split 
itself in the middle and go shrieking away, with the accompanying 
disenchanting spectacle of the hands and heels of the impelling impulse 
— no, the curtain was always dropped for an instant — one heard not 
the least movement behind it — but when it went up, the next instant, 
the forest was gone. Even when the stage was being entirely re-set, 
one heard no noise. During the whole time that ' King Lear ' was 
playing, the curtain was never down two minutes at any one time. The 
orchestra played until the curtain was ready to go up for the first time, 
then they departed for the evening. Where the stage-waits never reach 
two minutes, there is no occasion for music. I had never seen this 
two-minute business between acts but once before, and that was when 
the * Shaughran ' was played at Wallack's. 

I was at a concert in Munich one night, the people were streaming 
in, the clock-hand pointed to seven, the music struck up, and instantly 
all movement in the body of the house ceased — nobody was standing, 
or walking up the aisles, or fumbling with a seat, the stream of 
incomers had suddenly dried up at its source. I listened undisturbed 
to a piece of music that was fifteen minutes long — always expecting 
some tardy ticket-holders to come crowding past my knees, and being 
continuously and pleasantly disappointed — but when the last note was 
struck, here came the stream again. You see, they had made those late 
comers wait in the comfortable waiting-parlour from the time the music 
had begun until it was ended. 

It was the 'first time I had ever seen this sort of criminals denied 
the privilege of destroying the comfort of a house full of their betters. 
Some of these were pretty fine birds, but no matter, they had to tarry 
outside in the long parlour under the inspection of a double rank of 
liveried footmen and waiting-maids who supported the two walls with 
their backs and held the wraps and traps of their masters and mistresses 
od their arms. 

We had no footmen to hold our things, and it was not permissible 
to take them into the concert room ; but there were some men and 
women to take charge of them for us. They gave us checks for them 
and charged a fixed price, payable in advance — five cents. 

In Germany they always hear one thing at an opera which has 
never yet been heard in America, perhaps — I mean the closing strain 



7H 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



of a fine solo or duet. We always smash into it with an earthquake 
of applause. The result is that we rob ourselves of the sweetest part 
of the treat ; we get the whisky, but we don't get the sugar in the 
bottom of the glass. 

Our way of scattering applause along through an act seems to me 
to be better than the Mannheim way of saving it all up till the act is 
ended. I do not see how an actor can forget himself and portray hot 
passion before a cold still audience. I should think he would feel 
foolish. It is a pain to me to this day, to remember how that old 




LATE COMERS CARED FOR. 



German Lear raged and wept and howled around the stage, with never 
a response from that hushed house, never a single outburst till the act 
was ended. To me there was something unspeakably uncomfortable in 
the solemn dead silences that always followed this old person's tremend- 
ous outpourings of his feelings. I could not help putting myself in his 
place — I thought I knew how sick and flat he felt during those silences, 
because I remembered a case which came under my observation once, 
and which — but I will tell the incident. 

One evening on board a Mississippi steamboat, a boy of ten years 
lay asleep in a berth — a long, slim-legged boy ; he was encased in quite 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



77 



a short shirt; it was the first time lie had ever made a trip on a 
steamboat, and so he was troubled, and scared, and had gone to bed. 
with his head filled with impending snaggings, and explosion?, and 
conflagrations, and sudden death. About ten o'clock som j twenty 
ladies were sitting around about the ladies' saloon, quietly reading, 
sewing, embroidering, and so on, and among them sat a sweer. 
benignant old dame with round spectacles on her nose and her busy 
knitting-needles in her hands. Now all of a sudden, into the midsi 
of this peaceful scene burst that slim-shanked boy in the brief shirt, 
wild-eyed, erect-haired, and shouting, ' Fire, fire 1 jump and run, the 
boat's afire, and there ain't a minute to lose ! ' All those ladies looked 



Sir v/^/^p^t 




EVIDENTLY DREAMING. 



sweetly up and smiled, nobody stirred, the old lady pulled her spectacles 
down, looked over them, and said, gently — 

' But you mustn't catch cold, child. Run and put on your breast- 
pin, and then come and tell us all about it.' 

It was a cruel chill to give to a poor little devil's gushing vehemence. 
He was expecting to be a sort of hero — the creator of a wild panic 
— and here everybody sat and smiled a mocking smile, and an old 
woman made fun of his bugbear. I turned and crept humbly away 
— for I was that boy — and never even cared to discover whether I 
had dreamed the fire or actually seen it. 

I am told that in a German concert or opera they hardly ever 



73 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

encore a song ; that though they may be dying to hear it again, their 
good breeding usually preserves them against requiring the repetition. 

Kings may encore ; that is quite another matter ; it delights every- 
body to see that the King is pleased ; and as to the actor encored, his 
pride and gratification are simply boundless. Still, there are circum- 
stances in which even a royal encore 

But it is better to illustrate. The King of Bavaria is a poet, and 
has a poet's eccentricities — with the advantage over all other poets of 
being able to gratify them, no matter what form they may take. He 
is fond of the opera, but not fond of sitting in the presence of an 
audience ; therefore, it has sometimes occurred, in Munich, that when 
an opera has been concluded and the players were getting off their 
paint and finery, a command has come to them to get their paint and 
finery on again. Presently the King would arrive, solitary and alone, 
and the players would begin at the beginning and do the entire opera 
over again with only that one individual in the vast solemn theatre for 
audience. Once he took an odd freak into his head. High up and out 
of sight, over the prodigious stage of the court theatre is a maze of 
interlacing water-pipes, so pierced that, in case of fire, innumerable 
little thread-like streams of water can be caused to descend ; and in 
case of need, this discharge can be augmented to a pouring flood. 
American managers might make a note of that. The king was sole 
audience. The opera proceeded, it was a piece with a storm in it; the 
mimic thunder began to mutter, the mimic wind began to wail and 
sough, and the mimic rain to patter. The King's interest rose higher 
and higher : it developed into enthusiasm. He cried out — 

1 It is good, very good indeed ! But I will have real rain ! turn 
on the water ! ' 

The manager pleaded for a reversal of the command ; said it would 
ruin the costly scenery and the splendid costumes, but the King cried — 

' No matter, no matter, I will have real rain ! Turn on the 
water ! ' 

So the real rain was turned on and began to descend in gossamer 
lances to the mimic flower beds and gravel walks of the stage. The 
richly dressed actresses and actors tripped about singing bravely and 
pretending not to mind it. The King was delighted — his enthusiasm 
grew higher. He cried out — 



a. TRAMP ABROAD. 



7^ 



' Bravo, bravo ! 



More thunder ! more lightning ! turn on more 



Tain 



The thunder boomed, the lightning glared, the storm-winds raged, 
the deluge poured down. The mimic royalty on the stage, with their 
soaked satins clinging to their bodies, slopped around ankle-deep in 
vater, warbling their sweetest and best, the fiddlers under the eaves of 
the stage sawed away for dear life, with the cold overflow spouting 
down the backs of their necks, and the dry and happy King sat in 
his lofry box, and wore his gloves to ribbons applauding. 




TURN ON MORE RAIN.' 



' More yet ! ' cried the King ; ' more yet — let loose all the thunder, 
turn on all the water ! I will hang the man that raises an umbrella ! ' 

When this most tremendous and effective storm that had ever been 
produced in any theatre was "at last over, the King's approbation was 
measureless. He cried — 

1 Magnificent, magnificent ! Encore ! Do it again ! ' 

But the manager succeeded in persuading him to recall the encore, 
ana said the company would feel sufficiently rewarded and com- 



so 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



plimented in the mere fact that the encore was desired by his Majesty, 
without fatiguing him with a repetition to gratify their own vanity. 

During the remainder of the act the lucky performers were those 
■whose narts required changes of dress; the others were a soaked, 

bedraggled, and uncom- 
fortable lot, but in the 
last degree picturesque. 
The stage scenery was 
ruined, trap- doors were 
so swollen that they 
wouldn't work for a 
week afterwards, the 
fine costumes were 
spoiled, and no end of 
minor damages were 
done by that remarkable 
storm. 

It was a royal idea — 
that storm — and royally 
carried out. But ob- 
serve the moderation of 
the King : he did not 
insist upon his encore. 
If he had been a glad- 
some, unreflecting 
American opera audi- 
ence, he probably would have had his storm repeated and repeated 
until he drowned all those people. 




HARRIS ATTENDING THE OPERA. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XI. 

The summer days passed pleasantly in Heidelberg. We had a skilled 

trainer, and under his instructions we were getting our legs in the 

right condition for the contemplated pedestrian tours ; we were well 

satisfied with the progress which we had made in the German language, 1 

and more than satisfied with what we had accomplished in Art. We had 

had the best instructors in drawing and painting in Germ -,ny — Ham- 

merling, Vogel, Miiller, Dietz, and Schumann. Hammerling taught us 

landscape painting, Vogel taught us figure drawing, Miiller taught us to 

do still-life, and Dietz and Schumann gave us a finishing course in 

two specialties — battlepieces and shipwrecks. Whatever I am in Art 

I owe to these men. I have something of the manner of each and all of 

them ; but they all said that I had also a manner of my own, and that 

it was conspicuous. They said there was a marked individuality about 

my style, insomuch that if I ever painted the commonest type of a 

dog, I should be sure to throw a something into the aspect of that dog 

which would keep him from being mistaken for the creation of any other 

artist. Secretly I wanted to believe all these kind sayings, but I could 

not ; I was afraid that my masters' partiality for me, and pride in me, 

biassed their judgment. So I resolved to make a test. Privately, and 

unknown to anyone, I painted my great picture, ' Heidelberg Castle 

Illuminated ' — my first really important work in oils — and had it hung 

up in the midst of a w. lerness of oil pictures in the Art Exhibition, 

with no name attach "d to it. To my great gratification it was instantly 

recognised as mine. All the town flocked to see it, and people even 

came from neighbouring localities to visit it. It made more stir than 

any other work in the Exhibition. But the most gratifying thing of 

1 See Appendix D for information concerning this fer rful tongue. 

G 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 

o that chance strangers, passing through, who had not heard of 
picture, were not only drawn to it, as by a loadstone, the moment 

they entered the gallery, but always took it for a ( Turner.' 

Mr. Harris was graduated in Art about the same time with myself, 

and we took a studio together. We waited awhile for some orders ; 




PAINTING MY GREAT PICTURE. 

then as time began to drag a little, we concluded to make a pedestrian 
tour. After much consideration we determined on a trip up the shores 
of the beautiful Neckar to Heilbronn. Apparently nobody had ever 
done that. There were ruined castles on the overhanging cliffs and 
crags all the way ; these were said to have their legends, like those 
on the Rhine, and, what was better still, they had never been in print. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



83 



There was nothing in the books about that lovely region, it had been 
neglected by the tourist, it was virgin soil for the literary pioneer. 

Meantime the knapsacks, the rough walking-suits, and the stout 
walking-shoes which we had ordered, were finished and brought to us. 
A Mr. X. and a young Mr. Z. had agreed to go with us. We went 
around one evening and bade good-bye to our friends, and afterwards 
had a little farewell banquet at the hotel. We got to bed early, for 
we wanted to make an early start, so as to take advantage of the cool 
of the morning. 

We were out of bed at break of day, feeling fresh and vigorous, 
and took a hearty breakfast, then plunged down through the leafy 
arcades of the Castle grounds, towards the town. What a glorious 
summer morning it was, and how the flowers did pour out their frag- 
rance, and how the birds did sing ! It was just the time for a tramp 
through the woods and mountains. 

We were all dressed 
alike : broad slouch hats, 
to keep the sun off; grey 
knapsacks; blue army 
shirts ; blue overalls ; lea- 
thern gaiters buttoned tight 
from knee down to ankle ; 
high-quarter coarse shoes 
snugly laced. Each man h< 
an opera-glass, a canteen, 
and a guide-book case slunu r 
over his shoulder, and car- 
ried an alpenstock in one 
hand and a sun umbrella in 
the other. Around our hats 
were wound many folds of <p ^ 
soft white muslin, with the ^4- 
ends hanging and flapping 
down our backs — an idea 
brought from the Orient and 

used by tourists all over Europe. Harris carried the little watch-like 
machine called a ' pedometer,' whose office is to keep count of a man's 

o2 




OUR START (BY HARRIS). 



84 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



steps and tell how far he has walked. Everybody stopped to admire 
our costumes and give us a hearty ' Pleasant march to you ! ' 

When we got down town I found that we could go by rail to within 
five miles of Heilbronn. The train was just starting, so we jumped 
aboard and went tearing away in splendid spirits. It was agreed all 
around that we had done wisely, because it would be just as enjoyable 
to walk down the Neckar as up it, and it could not be needful to 
walk both ways. There were some nice German people in our com- 
partment. I got to talking some pretty private matters presently, and 
Harris became nervous ; so he nudged me and said — 

1 Speak in German — these Germans may understand English.' 

I did so, and it was well 
I did ; for it turned out 
that there was not a Ger- 
man in that party who did 
not understand English per- 
fectly. It is curious how 
widespread our language is 
in Germany. After a while 
some of those folks got out, 
and a German gentleman 
and his two young daugh- 
ters got in. I spoke in 
German to one of the lat- 
ter several times, but with- 
out result. Finally she 
said — 

' Ich verstehe nur 
Deutsch und Englisch ' — 
or words to that effect. 
That is, ' I don't understand 
any language but German and English.' 

And sure enough, not only she but her father and sister spoke 
English. So after that we had all the talk we wanted ; and we wanted 
a good deal, for they were very agreeable people. They were greatly 
interested in our costumes; especially the alpenstocks, for they had 
not seen any before. They said that the Neckar road was perfectly 




AN UNKNOWN COSTUME. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



85 



level, so we must be going to Switzerland or some other rugged country ; 
and asked us if we did not find the walking pretty fatiguing in such 
warm weather. But we said No. 

We reached Wimpfen — I think it was Wimpfen — in about three 
hours, and got out, not the least tired ; found a good hotel and ordered 
beer and dinner ; then took a stroll through the venerable old village. 
It was very picturesque and tumble-down, and dirty and interesting. 
It had queer houses five hundred years old in it, and a military tower, 
115 feet high, which had stood there more than ten centuries. I made 
a little sketch of it. I kept a copy, but gave the original to the Burgo- 
master. I think the original was better than the copy, because it had 
more windows in it, and the grass stood up better and had a brisker 
look. There was none around the 
tower, though ; I composed the 
grass myself, from studies I made 
in a field by Heidelberg in Ham- 
merling's time. The man on top, 
looking at the view, is apparently 
too large, but I found he could 
not be made smaller conveniently. 
I wanted him there, and I wanted 
him visible, so I thought out a way 
to manage it ; I composed the pic- 
ture from two points of view ; the 
spectator is to observe the man 
from about where that flag is, and 
he must observe the tower itself 
from the ground. This harmonises 
the seeming discrepancy. 

Near an old cathedral, under 
a shed, were three crosses of stone — mouldy and damaged things, bear- 
ing life-size stone figures. The two thieves were dressed in the fanciful 
court costumes of the middle of the sixteenth century, while the 
Saviour was nude, with the exception of a cloth around the loins. 

We had dinner under the green trees in a garden belonging to the 
hotel and overlooking the Neckar ; then, after a smoke, we went to bed. 
We had a refreshing nap, then got up about three in the afternoon and 




THE TOWER. 



so 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



put on our panoply. As we tramped gaily out at the gate of the town, 
we overtook a peasant's cart, partly laden with odds and ends of cab- 
bages and similar vegetable rubbish, and drawn by a small cow and 
a smaller donkey yoked together. It was a pretty slow concern, but it 
got us into Heilbronn before dark — five miles, or possibly it was 
seven. 

We stopped at the very same inn which the famous old robber 
knight and rough fighter, Gbtz von Berlichingen, abode in after he 
got out of captivity in the Square Tower of Heilbronn between three 
hundred and fifty and four hundred years ago. Harris and I occupied 




SLOW BUT SURE. 

the same room which he had occupied, and the same paper had not all 
peeled off the walls yet. The furniture was quaint old carved stuff, full 
four hundred years old, and some of the smells were over a thousand. 
There was a hook in the wall, which the landlord said the terrific old 
Gotz used to hang his iron hand on wlien he took it off to go to bed. 
This room was very large — it might be called immense — and it was on 
the first floor ; which means it was in the second story, for in Europe 
the houses are so high that they do not count the first story, else they 
would get tired climbing before they got to the top. The wall paper was 
a fiery red, with huge gold figures in it, well smirched by time, and it 
covered all the doors. These doors fitted so snugly and continued the 
figures of the paper so unbrokenly that when they were closed one 
had to go feeling and searching along the wall to find them. There 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 87 

was a stove in the corner — one of those tall, square, stately white por- 
celain things that looks like a monument, and keeps you thinking of 
death when you ought to be enjoying your travels. The windows 
looked out on a little alley, and over that into a stable and some 
poultry and pig yards in the rear of some tenement houses. There 
were the customary two beds in the room, one in one end of it, the 
other in the other, about an old-fashioned brass-mounted single-barrelled 
pistol-shot apart. They were fully as narrow as the usual German 
bed, too, and had the German bed's ineradicable habit of spilling the 
blankets on the floor every time you forgot yourself and went to sleep. 
A round table as large as King Arthur's stood in the centre of the 
room ; while the waiters were getting ready to serve our dinner on it 
we all went out to see the renowned clock on the front of the municipal 
buildings. 



A TRAMP ABROAL. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Rathhaus, or municipal building, is of the quaintest and most 
picturesque Middle-Age architecture. It has a massive portico and 
steps before it, heavily balustraded, and adorned with life-size rusty iron 
knights in complete armour. The clock-face on the front of the build- 
ing is very large, and of curious pattern. Ordinarily a gilded angel 
strikes the hour on a big bell with a hammer ; as the striking ceases, 
a life-size figure of Time raises its hour-glass and turns it ; two golden 
rams advance and butt each other ; a gilded cock lifts its wings ; but 
the main features are two great angels, who stand on each side of the 
dial with long horns at their lips : it was said that they blew melodious 
blasts on these horns every hour ; but they did not do it for us. We 
were told later that they blew only at night when the town was still. 

Within the Rathhaus were a number of huge wild boars' heads, 
preserved and mounted on brackets along the wall ; they bore inscrip- 
tions telling who killed them, and how many hundred years ago it was 
done. One room in the building was devoted to the preservation of 
ancient archives. There they showed us no end of aged documents ; 
some were signed by Popes, some by Tilley and other great generals, 
and one was a letter written and subscribed by Gotz von Berlichingen 
in Heilbronn in 1519, just after his release from the Square Tower. 

This fine old robber-knight was a devoutly and sincerely religious 
man, hospitable, charitable to the poor, fearless in fight, active, enter- 
prising, and possessed of a large and generous nature. He had in him 
a quality which was rare in that rough time — the quality of being 
able to overlook moderate injuries, and of being able to forgive and 
forget mortal ones as soon as he had soundly trounced the authors of 
them. He was prompt to take up any poor devil's quarrel and risk his 
neck to right him. The common folk held him dear, and his memory 




THE ROBBER CHIEF 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 91 

is still green in ballad and tradition. He used to go on the highway 
and rob rich wayfarers ; and other times he would swoop down from 
his high castle on the hills of the Neckar and capture passing cargoes 
of merchandise. In his Memoirs he piously thanks the Giver of all 
Good for remembering him in his needs and delivering sundry such 
cargoes into his hands at times when only special providences could 
have relieved him. He was a doughty warrior, and found a deep joy 
in battle. In an assault upon a stronghold in Bavaria, when he was 
only twenty-three years old, his right hand was shot away, but he was 
so interested in the fight that he did not observe it for a while. He 
said that the iron hand which was made for him afterward, and which 
he wore for more than half a century, was nearly as clever a member 
as the fleshy one had been. I was glad to get a facsimile of the letter 
written by this fine old German Robin Hood, though I was not able to 
read it. He was a better artist with his sword than with his pen. 

We went down by the river and saw the Square Tower. It was a 
very venerable structure, very strong, and very unornamental. There 
was no opening near the ground. They had to use a ladder to get into 
it, no doubt. 

We visited the principal church, also, a curious old structure, with 
a tower-like spire adorned with all sorts of grotesque images. The 
inner walls of the church were placarded with large mural tablets of 
copper, bearing engraved inscriptions celebrating the merits of old 
Heilbronn worthies of two or three centuries ago, and also bearing 
rudely-painted effigies of themselves and their families tricked out in 
the queer costumes of those days. The head of the family sat in the 
foreground, and beyond him extended a sharply receding and diminish- 
ing row of sons ; facing him sat his wife, and beyond her extended a 
long row of diminishing daughters. The family was usually large,, 
but the perspective bad. 

Then we hired the hack and the horse which Gbtz von Berlichingen 
used to use, and drove several miles into the country to visit the place 
called Weibertreu — Wife's Fidelity, I suppose it means. It was a feudal 
castle of the Middle Ages. When we reached its neighbourhood we 
found it was beautifully situated, but on top oi a mound, or hill,, 
round and tolerably steep, and about two hundred feet high. There- 
fore, as the sun was blazing hot, we did not climb up there, but took 



32 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

the place on trust, and observed it from a distance, while the horse 
leaned up against a fence and rested. The place has no interest except 
that which is lent it by its legend, which is a very pretty one — to this 
•eifect. 

THE LEGEND. 

In the Middle Ages a couple of young dukes, brothers, took opposite 
sides in one of the wars, the one fighting for the Emperor, the other 
against him. One of them owned the castle and village on top of the 
mound which I have been speaking of, and in his absence his brother 
•came with his knights and soldiers and began a siege. It was a long 
-and tedious business; for the people made a stubborn and faithful de- 
fence. But at last their supplies ran out, and starvation began its 
work ; more fell by hunger than by the missiles of the enemy. They 
by-and-by surrendered, and begged for charitable terms. But the 
beleaguering prince was so incensed against them for their long resist- 
ance that he said he would spare none but the women and children — all 
the men should be put to the sword without exception, and all their 
goods destroyed. Then the women came and fell on their knees and 
begged for the lives of their husbands. 

1 No,' said the prince, ' not a man of them shall escape alive ; you 
yourselves shall go with your children into houseless and friendless 
banishment ; but that you may not starve I grant you this one grace, 
that each woman may bear with her from this place as much of her 
most valuable property as she is able to carry.' 

Very well, presently the gates swung open and out filed those women 
carrying their husbands on their shoulders. The besiegers, furious 
at the trick, rushed forward to slaughter the men, but the Duke stepped 
between and said — 

' No, put up your swords — a prince's word is inviolable.' 

When we got back to the hotel, King Arthur's Eound Table was 
ready for us in its white drapery, and the head waiter and his first 
assistant, in swallow-tails and white cravats, brought in the soup and 
the hot plates at once. 

Mr. X. had ordered the dinner, and when the wine came on, he 
picked up a bottle, glanced at the label, and then turned to the grave, 
the melancholy, the sepulchral head waiter, and . said it was not the 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



9$ 



sort of wine he had asked for. The head waiter picked up the bottle, 
cast his undertaker-eye on it, and said — 

* It is true; I beg pardon.' Then 
he turned on his subordinate and 
calmly said, ' Bring another label.' 

At the same time he slid the 
present label off with his hand and 
laid it aside ; it had been newly put 
on, its paste was still wet. When 
the new label came, he put it on ; 
onr French wine being now turned 
into German wine, according to de- 
sire, the head waiter went blandly 
about his other duties, as if the 
working of this sort of miracle was 
a common and easy thing to him. 

Mr. X. said he had not known 
before that there were people honest 
enough to do this miracle in public, 
but he was aware that thousands 
upon thousands of labels were im- 
ported into America from Europe ;S _ 
every year, to enable dealers to fur- 
nish to their customers, in a quiet 
and inexpensive way, all the dif- 
ferent kinds of foreign wines they 
might require. 

We took a turn around the 
town, after dinner, and found it fully as interesting in the moonlight 
as it had been in the day time. The streets were narrow and roughly 
paved, and there was not a sidewalk or a street lamp anywhere. The 
dwellings were centuries old, and vast enough for hotels. They 
widened all the way up ; the stories projected further and further 
forward and aside as they ascended, and the long rows of lighted 
windows, filled with little bits of panes, curtained with figured white 
muslin and adorned outside with boxes of flowers, made a pretty 
effect. The moon was bright, and the light and shadow very strong ; 




w.f.a. 



AN HONEST MAN. 



94 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

and nothing could be more picturesque than those curving streets, with 
their rows of huge high gables leaning far over toward each other 
in a friendly gossiping way, and the crowds below drifting through 
the alternating blots of gloom and mellow bars of moonlight. Nearly 
everybody was abroad, chatting, singing, romping, or massed in lazy 
comfortable attitudes in the doorways. 




THE TOWN BY NIGHT. 

In one place there was a public building which was fenced about 
with a thick, rusty chain, which sagged from post to post in a succes- 
sion of low swings. The pavement here was made of heavy blocks of 
stone. In the glare of the moon a party of barefooted l children were 

1 I certainly thought them barefooted, but evidently the artist has had 
doubts. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 95 

swinging on those chains and having a noisy good time. They were 
not the first ones who had done that ; even their great-great-grand- 
fathers had not been the first to do it when they were children. The 
strokes of the bare feet had worn grooves inches deep in the stone 



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GENERATIONS OF BARE FEET. 



flags; it had taken many generations of swinging children to accom- 
plish that. Everywhere in the town were the mould and decay that 
go with antiquity, and evidence it ; but I do not know that anything 
else gave us so vivid a sense of the old age of Heilbronn as those foot- 
worn grooves in the paving stones. 



96 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

When we got back to the hotel I wound and set the pedometer and 
put it in my pocket, for I was to carry it next day and keep record of 
the miles we made. The work which we had given the instrument 
to do during the day which had just closed, had not fatigued it per- 
ceptibly. 

We were in bed by ten, for we wanted to be up and away on our 
tramp homeward with the dawn. I hung fire, but Harris went to sleep 
at once. I hate a man who goes to sleep at once ; there is a sort of 
indefinable something about it which is not exactly an insult, and yet 
is an insolence ; and one which is hard to bear, too. I lay there fretting 
over this injury, and trying to go to sleep; but the harder I tried the 
wider awake I grew. I got to feeling very lonely in the dark, with 
no company but an undigested dinner. My mind got a start by-and-by, 
and began to consider the beginning of every subject which has ever 
been thought of; but it never went further than the beginning ; it was 
touch and go ; it fled from topic to topic with a frantic speed. At the 
end of an hour my head was in a perfect whirl, and I was dead tired, 
fagged out. 

The fatigue was so great that it presently began to make some head 
against the nervous excitement; while imagining myself wide awake, I 
would really doze into momentary unconsciousnesses, and come sud- 
denly out of them with a physical jerk which nearly wrenched my 
joints apart — the delusion of the instant being that I was tumbling 
backwards over a precipice. After I had fallen over eight or nine 
precipices and thus found out that one half of my brain had been asleep 
eight or nine times without the wide-awake, hard-working other half 
suspecting it, the periodical unconsciousnesses began to extend their 
spell gradually over more of my brain-territory, and at last I sank into 



A TEA MP ABROAD. 



97 



a drowse which grew deeper and deeper and was doultless just on the 
very point of becoming a solid, 
blessed, dreamless stupor, when 
— what was that ? 

My dulled faculties dragged 
themselves partly back to life, 
and took a receptive attitude. 
Now out of an immense, a 
limitless distance, came a some- 
thing which grew and grew, 
and approached, and presently 
was recognisable as a sound — 
it had rather seemed to be a 
feeling, before. This sound 
was a mile away, now — perhaps 
it was the murmur of a storm ; 
and now it was nearer — not a 
quarter of a mile away ; was 
it the muffled rasping and 
grinding of distant machinery ? 
No, it came still nearer ; was 
it the measured tramp of a 
marching troop ? But it came 
nearer still, and still nearer — 
and at last it was right in the 
room : it was merely a mouse 
gnawing the woodwork. So I 
had held my breath all that 
time for such a trifle. 

Well, what was done could 
not be helped ; I would go to 
sleep at once and make up the 
lost time. That was a thought- 
less thought. Without intend- 
ing it — hardly knowing it — I 
fell to listening intently to that 
sound, and even unconsciously 0UK beohoom. 




A TRAMP ABROAD. 



counting the strokes of the mouse's nutmeg-grater. Presently I was 
deriving exquisite suffering from this employment, yet maybe I could 
have endured it if the mouse had attended steadily to his work ; but he 
did not do that ; he stopped every now and then, and I suffered more 
while waiting and listening for him to begin again than I did while he 
was gnawing. Along at first I was mentally offering a reward of five, — 
six, — seven, — ten dollars for that mouse ; but towards the last I was 
offering rewards which were entirely beyond my means. I close-reefed 
my ears, — that is to say, I bent the flaps of them down, and furled 
them into five or six folds, and pressed them against the hearing-orifice, 
— but it did no good : the faculty was so sharpened by nervous excite- 
ment that it was become a microphone, and could hear through the 
overlays without trouble. 

My anger grew to a frenzy. I finally did what all persons before 
me have done, clear back to Adam — resolved to throw something. I 
reached down and got my walking-shoes, then sat up in bed and 
listened, in order to exactly locate the noise. But I couldn't do it ; 
it was as unbeatable as a cricket's noise ; and where one thinks that 

that is, is always the 
very place where it 
isn't. So I presently 
hurled a shoe at ran- 
dom, and with a vi- 
cious vigour. It 
struck the wall over 
Harris's head and 
fell down on him ; I 
had not imagined I 
could throw so far. 
It woke Harris, and 
I was glad of it until 
I found he was not 
angry; then I was 
sorry. He soon went 
to sleep again, which 

PRACTISING. l J k„ + 

pleased me ; but 
straightway the mouse began again, which roused my temper once more. 




A TRAMP ABROAD. 99 

I did not want to wake Harris a second time, but the gnawing continued 
until I was compelled to throw the other shoe. This time I broke a 
mirror — there were two in the room — I got the largest one of course. 
Harris woke again, but did not complain, and I was sorrier than ever. 
I resolved that I would suffer all possible torture before I would disturb 
him a third time. 

The mouse eventually retired, and by-and-by I was sinking to sleep, 
when a clock began to strike ; I counted till it was done, and was about 
to drowse again when another clock began ; I counted ; then the two 
great Kathhaus clock angels began to send forth soft, rich, melodious 
blasts from their long trumpets. I had never heard anything that 
was so lovely, or weird, or mysterious — but when they got to blowing 
the quarter-hours, they seemed to me to be overdoing the thing. Every 
time I dropped off for a moment, a new noise woke me. Each time 
I woke, I missed my coverlet, and had to reach down to the floor and 
get it again. 

At last all sleepiness forsook me. I recognised the fact that I was 
hopelessly and permanently wide awake. Wide awake, and feverish 
and thirsty. When I had lain tossing there as long as I could endure 
it, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to dress and go out 
in the great square and take a refreshing wash in the fountain, and 
smoke and reflect there until the remnant of the night was gone. 

I believed I could dress in the dark without waking Harris. I had 
banished my shoes after the mouse, but my slippers would do for a 
summer night. So I rose softly, and gradually got on everything — 
down to one sock. I couldn't seem to get on the track of that sock, 
anyway I could fix it. But I had to have it; so I went down on l / 
hands and knees with one slipper on and the other in my hand, and 
began to paw gently around and rake the floor, but with no success. 
I enlarged my circle, and went on pawing and raking. With every 
pressure of my knee, how the jSbor creaked ! and every time I chanced 
to rake against any article, it seemed to give out thirty-five or thirty- 
six times more noise than it would have done in the day time. In those 
cases I always stopped and held my breath till I was sure Harris had 
not awakened— then I crept along again. I moved on and on, but I 
could not find the sock ; I could not seem to find anything but furniture. 
I could not remember that there was much furniture in the room when 

H2 

L OF C. 



100 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



I went to bed, but the place was alive with it now — especially chairs — 
chairs everywhere — had a couple of families moved in, in the mean- 
time ? And I never could seem to glance on one of those chairs, but 
always struck it full and square with my head. My temper rose, by 
steady and sure degrees, and as I pawed on and on, I fell to making 
vicious comments under my breath. 




PAWING AROUND. 

Finally, with a venomous access of irritation, I said I would leave 
without the sock ; so I rose up and made straight for the door — as I 
supposed — and suddenly confronted my dim spectral image in the un- 
broken mirror. It startled the breath out of me, for an instant; it also 
showed me that I was lost, and had no sort of idea where I was. When 
I realised this, I was so angry that I had to sit down on the floor and 
take hold of something to keep from lifting the roof off with an explo- 
sion of opinion. If there had been only one mirror, it might possibly 
have helped to locate me; but there were two, and two were as bad 
as a thousand ; besides, these were on opposite sides of the room. I 
could see the dim blur of the windows, but in my turned-around 
condition they were exactly where they ought not to be, and so they 
only confused me instead of helping me. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 101 

I started to get up, and knocked down an umbrella ; it made a noise 
like a pistol-shot when it struck that hard, slick carpetless floor ; I 
grated my teeth, and held my breath — Harris did not stir. I set the 
umbrella slowly and carefully on end against the wall, but as soon as I 
took my hand away, its heel slipped from under it, and down it came 
again with another bang. I shrunk together and listened a moment in 
silent fury — no harm done, everything quiet. With the most pains- 
taking care and nicety I stood the umbrella up once more, took my 
hand away, and down it came again. 

I have been strictly reared, but if it had not been so dark and 
solemn and awful there in that lonely vast room, I do believe I should 
have said something then which could not be put into a Sunday-school 
book without injuring the sale of it. If my reasoning powers had not 
been already sapped dry by my harassments, I would have known 
better than to try to set an umbrella on end on one of those glassy 
German floors in the dark ; it can't be done in the daytime without four 
failures to one success. I had one comfort, though — Harris was yet 
still and silent — he had not stirred. 

The umbrella could not locate me — there were four standing around 
the room, and all alike. I thought I would feel along the wall and find 
the door in that way. I rose up and began this operation, but raked 
down a picture. It was not a large one, but it made noise enough for a 
panorama. Harris gave out no sound, but I felt that if I experimented 
any further with the pictures I should be sure to wake him. Better 
give up trying to get out. Yes, I would find King Arthur's Round 
Table once more — I had already found it several times — and use it 
for a base of departure on an exploring tour for my bed ; if I could 
find my bed I could then find my water pitcher ; I would quench my 
raging thirst and turn in. So I started on my hands and knees, because 
I could go faster that way, and with more confidence, too, and not 
knock down things. By-and-by I found the table — with my head — 
rubbed the bruise a little, then rose up and started, with hands 
abroad and fingers spread, to balance myself. I found a chair ; then 
the wall ; then another chair ; then a sofa; then an alpenstock, then 
another sofa ; this confounded me, for I had thought there was only 
one sofa. I hunted up the table again and took a fresh start ; found 
some more chairs. 



102 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



It occurred to me, now, as it ought to have done before, that as the 
table was round, it was therefore of no value as a base to aim from ; 
so I moved off once more, and at random among the wilderness of 

chairs and 



wandered off into 
unfamiliar regions, 
and presently 
knocked a candle- 
stick off a mantel- 
piece ; grabbed at 
the candlestick and 
knocked off a lamp ; 
grabbed at the lamp 
and knocked off a 
water-pitcher with a 
rattling crash, and 
thought to myself, 
' I've found you at 
last — I judged I was 
close upon you.' 
Harris shouted 
'murder,' and 
' thieves,' and fin- 
ished with ' I'm abso- 
lutely drowned.' 

The crash had 
roused the house. 
Mr. X. pranced in 
in his long night gar- 
ment with a candle, 
young Z. after him with another candle ; a procession swept in at another 
door with candles and lanterns, landlord and two German guests in their 
nightgowns, and a chambermaid in hers. 

I looked around ; I was at Harris's bed, a Sabbath day's journey 
from my own. There was only one sofa, it was against the wall ; there 
was only one chair where a body could get at it — I had been revolving 




A NIGHTS WORK. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 103 

around it like a planet, and colliding with it like a comet half the 
night. 

I explained how I had been employing myself, and why. Then 
the landlord's party left, and the rest of us set about our preparations 
for breakfast, for the dawn was ready to break. I glanced furtively at 
my pedometer, and found I had made forty-seven miles. But I did 
not care, for I had come out for a pedestrian tour anyway. 



101 A IP, AMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Wiien the landlord learned that I and my agent were artists, our party 
rose perceptibly in his esteem ; we rose still higher when he learned 
that we were making a pedestrian tour of Europe. 

He told us all about the Heidelberg road, and which were the 
best places to avoid, and which the best ones to tarry at ; he charged 
me less than cost for the things I broke in the night ; he put up a fine 
luncheon for us, and added to it a quantity of great light-green plums, 
the pleasantest fruit in Germany ; he was so anxious to do us honour 
that he would not allow us to walk out of Heilbronn, but called up 
Gotz von Berlichingen's horse and cab and made us ride. 

I made a sketch of the turn-out. It is not a Work, it is only what 
artists call a ' study ' — a thing to make a finished picture from. This 
sketch has several blemishes in it ; for instance, the waggon is not 
travelling as fast as the horse is. This is wrong. Again, the person 
trying to get out of the way is too small ; he is out of perspective, as 
we say. The two upper lines are not the horse's back, they are the 
reins ; there seems to be a wheel missing — this would be corrected in 
a finished Work, of course. That thing flying out behind is not a flag, 
it is a curtain. That other thing up there is the sun, but I didn't get 
enough distance on it. I do not remember, now, what that thing is 
that is in front of the man who is running, but I think it is a haystack 
or a woman. This study was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1879, but 
did not take any medal ; they do not give medals for studies. 

We discharged the carriage at the bridge. The riv^er was full of 
logs — long, slender, barkless pine logs — and we leaned on the rails of 
the bridge and watched the men put them together into rafts. These 
rafts were of a shape and construction to suit the crookedness and 
extreme narrowness of the Neckar. They were from 50 to 100 yards 



A Til AMP ABROAD. 



10* 



long, and they gradually tapered 
from a 9-log breadth at their sterns, 
to a 3-1 og breadth at their bow- 
ends. The main part of the steer- 
ing is done at the bow, with a pole ; 
the 3-log breadth there furnishes 
room for only the steersman, for 
these little logs are not larger 
around than an average young 
lady's waist. The connections of 
the several sections of the raft are 
slack and pliant, so that the raft may 
be readily bent into any sort of 
curve required by the shape of the 
river. 

The Neckar is in many places 
so narrow that a person can throw 
a dog across it, if he has one ; when 
it is also sharply curved in such 
places, the raftsman has to do some 
pretty nice snug piloting to make the 
turns. The river is not always 
allowed to spread over its whole bed 
— which is as much as thirty, and 
sometimes forty yards wide — but is 
split into three equal bodies of 
water, by stone dykes which throw 
the main volume, depth, and cur- 
rent, into the central one. In low 
water these neat narrow-edged dykes 
project four or five inches above the 
surface, like the comb of a sub- 
merged roof; but in high water they 
are overflowed. A hatful of rain 
makes high water in the Neckar, 
and a basketful produces an over- 
flow. 




106 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

There are dykes abreast the Schloss Hotel, and the current is 
violently swift at that point. I used to sit for hours in my glass cage, 
watching the long narrow rafts slip along through the central channel, 
grazing the right- bank dyke, and aiming carefully for the middle arch 
of the stone bridge below ; I watched them in this way, and lost all 
this time hoping to see one of them hit the bridge-pier and wreck 
itself some time or other, but was always disappointed. One was 
smashed there one morning, but I had just stepped into my room a 
moment to light a pipe, so I lost it. 

While I was looking down upon the rafts that morning in Heil- 
bronn, the dare-devil spirit of adventure came suddenly upon me, 
and I said to my comrades — 

'/ am going to Heidelberg on a raft. Will you venture with 
me?' 

Their faces paled a little, but they assented with as good a grace 
as they could. Harris wanted to cable his mother — thought it his duty 
to do that, as he was all she had in this world — so, while he attended 
to this, I went down to the longest and finest raft and hailed the 
captain with a hearty l Ahoy, shipmate ! ' which put us upon pleasant 
terms at once, and we entered upon business. I said we were on a 
pedestrian tour to Heidelberg, and would like to take passage with 
him. I said this partly through young Z., who spoke German very 
well, and partly through Mr. X., who spoke it peculiarly. I can under- 
stand German as well as the maniac that invented it, but I talk it 
best through an interpreter. 

The captain hitched up his trousers, then shifted his quid thought- 
fully. Presently he said just what I was expecting he would say, 
that he had no licence to carry passengers, and therefore was afraid the 
law would be after him in case the matter got noised about or any 
accident happened. So I chartered the raft and the crew, and took all 
the responsibilities on myself. 

With a rattling song the starboard watch bent to their work and 
hove the cable short, then got the anchor home, and our bark moved 
off with a stately stride, and soon was bowling along at about two knots 
.an hour. 

Our party were grouped amidships. At first the talk was a little 
gloomy, and ran mainly upon the shortness of life, the uncertainty of it, 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



107 



the perils which beset it, and the need and wisdom of being always 
prepared for the worst ; this shaded off into low-voieed references 
to the dangers of the deep, and kindred matters ; but as the grey east 




THE CAPTAIN. 



began to redden, and the mysterious solemnity and silence of the dawn 
to give place to the joy-songs of the birds, the talk took a cheerier 
tone, and our spirits began to rise steadily. 

Germany, in the summer, is the perfection of the beautiful, but 



108 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



nobody has understood, and realised, and enjoyed the utmost possibili- 
ties of this soft and peaceful beauty unless he has voyaged down the 
Neckar on a raft. The motion of a raft is the needful motion ; it is 
gentle, and gliding, and smooth, and noiseless; it calms down all 
feverish activities, it soothes to sleep all nervous hurry and impatience ; 
under its restful influence all the troubles and vexations and sorrows 
that harass the mind vanish away, and existence becomes a dream, 
a charm, a deep and tranquil ecstasy. How it contrasts with hot and 




WAITING FOE THE TEAIN. 



perspiring pedestrianism and dusty and deafening railroad rush, and 
tedious jolting behind tired horses over blinding white roads ! 

We went slipping silently along, between the green and fragrant 
banks, with a sense of pleasure and -contentment that grew and grew 
all the time. Sometimes the banks were overhung with thick masses 
of willows that wholly hid the ground behind ; sometimes we had noble 
hills on one band, clothed densely with foliage to their tops, and on the 
other hand open levels blazing with poppies, or clothed in the rich 
blue of the corn-flower; sometimes we drifted in the shadow of 
forests, and sometimes along the margin of long stretches of velvety 



A TRAMP ABROAD. i09 

grass, fresh and green and bright, a tireless charm to the eye. And the 
birds ! — they were everywhere ; they swept back and forth across the 
river constantly, and their jubilant music was never stilled. 

It was a deep and satisfying pleasure to see the sun create the new 
morning, and gradually, patiently, lovingly, clothe it on with splendour 
after splendour, and glory after glory, till the miracle was complete. 
How different is this marvel observed from a raft, from what it is 
when one observes it through the dingy windows of a railway station 
in some wretched village, while he munches a petrified sandwich and 
waits for the train. ■ 



110 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XV. 

DOWN THE RIVER. 

Men and women and cattle were at work in the dewy fields by this 
time. The people often stepped aboard the raft, as we glided along the 
grassy shores, and gossiped with us and with the crew for a hundred 
yards or so, then stepped ashore again, refreshed by the ride. 

Only the men did this, the women were too busy. The women do all 
kinds of work on the Continent. They dig, they hoe, they reap, they 
sow, they bear monstrous burdens on their backs, they shove similar 
ones long distances on wheelbarrows, they drag the cart when there is 
no dog or lean cow to drag it, and when there is, they assist the dog or 
cow. Age is no matter : the older the woman, the stronger she is, 
apparently. On the farm a woman's duties are not defined, she does a 
little of everything ; but in the towns it is different, there she only does 
certain things, the men do the rest. For instance, an hotel chamber- 
maid has nothing to do but make beds and fires in fifty or sixty rooms, 
bring towels and candles, and fetch several tons of water up several 
flights of stairs, a hundred pounds at a time, in prodigious metal 
pitchers. She does not have to work more than eighteen or twenty 
hours a day, and she can always get down on her knees and scrub 
the floors of halls and closets when she is tired and needs a rest. 

As the morning advanced and the weather grew hot, we took off 
our outside clothing, and sat in a row along the edge of the raft and 
enjoyed the scenery, with our sun umbrellas over our heads and our 
legs dangling in the water. Every now and then we plunged in and 
had a swim. Every projecting grassy cape had its joyous group of" 
naked children, the boys to themselves and the girls to themselves, 
the latter usually in care of some motherly dame who sat in the shade 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Ill 



of a tree with her knitting. The little boys swam out to us some- 
times, but the little maids stood knee-deep in the water, and stopped 
their splashing and frolicking to inspect the raft with their innocent eyes 
as it drifted by. Once we turned a corner suddenly, and surprised a 
slender girl of twelve years or upwards, just stepping into the water. 
She had not time to run, but she did what answered just as well ; she 
promptly drew a lithe young willow bough athwart her white body with 




'A DEEP AND TRANQUIL ECSTASY. 



one hand, and then contemplated us with a simple and untroubled 
interest. Thus she stood while we glided by. She was a pretty crea- 
ture, and she and her willow bough made a very pretty picture, and one 
which could not offend the modesty of the most fastidious spectator. 
Her white skin had a low bank of fresh green willows for back- 
ground and effective contrast — for she stood against them — and above 
and out of them projected the eager faces and white shoulders of two 
smaller girls. 

Towards noon we heard the inspiriting cry — 

1 Sail hoi' 

* Where away?' shouted the captain. 

* Three points off the weather bow I ' 

We ran forward to see the vessel. It proved to be a steamboat— 
for they had begun to run a steamer up the Neckar, for the first time 



112 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

in May. She was a tug, and one of very peculiar build and aspect. 
I had often watched her from the hotel, and wondered how she pro- 
pelled herself, for apparently she had no propeller or paddles. She 
came churning along, now, making a deal of noise of one kind and 
another, and aggravating it every now and then by blowing a hoarse 
whistle. She had nine keel-boats hitched on behind and following after 
her in a long, slender rank. We met her in a narrow place, between 





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WHICH ANSWERED JUST AS WELL. 



dyke?, and there was hardly room for us both in the cramped passage. 
As she went grinding and groaning by, we perceived the secret of her 
moving impulse. She did not drive herself up the river with paddles 
or propeller, she pulled herself by hauling on a great chain. This chain 
is laid in the bed of the river, and is only fastened at the two ends. 
It is seventy miles long. It comes in over the boat's bow, passes 
around a drum, and is paid out astern. She pulls on that chain, and so 
drags herself up the river or down it She has neither bow nor stern, 



A IB AMP ABROAD. 



113 



strictly speaking, for she has a long-bladed rudder on each end, and 
she never turns around. She uses both rudders all the time, and they 
are powerful enough to enable her to turn to the right or the left, and 
steer around curves in spite of the strong resistance of the chain. I 
would not have believed that that impossible thing could be done ; but 
I saw it done, and therefore I know that there is one impossible thing 
which can be done. What miracle will man attempt next ? 

We met many big keel boats on their way up, using sails, mule 
power, and profanity — a tedious and laborious business. A wire rope 
led from the f oretop mast to the file of mules on the tow-path a hundred 
yards ahead, and by dint of much banging and sAvearing and urging, 




LIFE ON A RAPT. 

the detachment of drivers managed to get a speed of two or three miles 
an hour out of the mules against the stiff current. The Neckar has 
always been used as a canal, and thus has given employment to a great 
many men and animals; but now that this steamboat is able, with a small 
crew and a bushel or so of coal, to take nine keel boats farther up the 
river in one hour than thirty men and thirty mules can do it in two, 
it is believed that the old-fashioned towing industry is on its death-bed. 
A second steamboat began work in the Neckar three months after the 
first one was put in service. 

At noon we stepped ashore and bought some bottled beer, and got 
eoine chickens cooked while the raft waited; then we immediately 

I 







fi a fo' &V?no^ij,i 



J*fe^^< </i)<s4k£f> 







BAT TJX G OX THE XECXAR. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 115 

put to sea again, and had our dinner while the beer was cold and 
the chickens hot. There is no pleasanter place for such a meal than a 
raft that is gliding down the winding Neckar, past green meadows and 
wooded hills, and slumbering villages, and craggy heights graced with 
crumbling towers and battlements. 

In one place we saw a nicely dressed German gentleman without any 
spectacles. Before I could come to anchor he had got away. It was a 
great pity. I so wanted to make a sketch of him. The captain com- 
forted me for my loss, however, by saying that the man was without 
any doubt a fraud who had spectacles, but kept them in his pocket in 
order to make himself conspicuous. 

Below Hassmersheim we passed Hornberg, Gbtz von Berlichingen's 
old castle. It stands on a bold elevation 200 feet above the surface of 
the river; it has high vine-clad walls inclosing trees, and a peaked 
tower about 75 feet high. The steep hillside, from the castle clear 
down to the water's edge, is terraced and clothed thick with grape 
vines. This is like farming a mansard roof. All the steeps along that 
part of the river which furnish the proper exposure, are given up to the 
grape. That region is a great producer of Rhine wines. The Germans 
are exceedingly fond of Rhine wines ; they are put up in tall, slender 
bottles, and are considered a pleasant beverage. One tells them from 
vinegar by the label. 

The Hornberg hill is to be tunnelled, and the new railway will 
pass under the castle. 

THE CAVE OF THE SPECTRE. 

Two miles below Hornberg castle is a cave in a low cliff, which 
the captain of the raft said had once been occupied by a beautiful 
heiress of Hornberg — the Lady Gertrude — in the old times. It was 
seven hundred years ago. She had a number of rich and noble lovers 
and one poor and obscure one, Sir Wendel Lobenfeld. With the 
native chuckleheadedness of the heroine of romance, she preferred the 
poor and obscure lover. With the native sound judgment of the 
father of a heroine of romance, the Von Berlichingen of that day 
shut his daughter up in his donjon keep, or his oubliette, or his 
culverine, or some such place, and resolved that she should stay there 
until she selected a husband from among her rich and noble lovers. 
The latter visited her and persecuted her with their supplications, but 



116 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 




LADY GERTRUDE. 



without effect, for her heart was true to her poor despised Crusader, 
who was fighting in the Holy Land. Finally she resolved that she would 

endure the attentions of the rich 
lovers no longer ; so one stormy night 
she escaped and went down the river 
and hid herself in the cave on the 
other side. Her father ransacked 
the country for her, but found not a 
trace of her. As the days went by, 
and still no tidings of her came, his 
conscience began to torture him, and 
he caused proclamation to be made 
that if she were yet living and would 
return, he would oppose her no 
longer, she might marry whom she 
would. The months dragged on, all hope forsook the old man, he ceased 
from his customary pursuits and pleasures, he devoted himself to pious 
works, and longed for the deliverance of death. 

Now just at midnight, every night, the lost heiress stood in the mouth 
of her cave, arrayed in white robes, and sang a little love ballad which 
her Crusader had made for her. She judged that if he came home alive 
the superstitious peasants would tell him about the ghost that sang in 
the cave, and that as soon as they described the ballad he would know 
that none but he and she knew that song, therefore he would suspect 
that she was alive, and would come and find her. As time went on, 
the people of the region became sorely distressed about the Spectre of 
the Haunted Cave. It was said that ill-luck of one kind or another 
always overtook anyone who had the misfortune to hear that song. 
Eventually, every calamity that happened thereabouts was laid at 
the door of that music. Consequently no boatman would consent to 
pass the cave at night ; the peasants shunned the place, even in the 
daytime. 

But the faithful girl sang on, night after night, month after month, 
and patiently waited; her reward must come at last. Five years 
dragged by, and still, every night at midnight, the plaintive tones 
floated out over the silent land, while the distant boatmen and peasants 
thrust their fingers into their ears and shuddered out a prayer. 



A TMAMP ABROAD. 



117 



And now came the Crusader home, bronzed and battle-scarred, 
but bringing a great and splendid fame to lay at the feet of his bride. 
The old lord of Hornberg received 
him as a son, and wanted him to stay 
by him and be the comfort and 
blessing of his age ; but the tale of 
that young girl's devotion to him and 
its pathetic consequences made a 
changed man of the knight. He 
could not enjoy his well-earned rest. 
He said his heart was broken, he 
would give the remnant of his life 
to high deeds in the cause of hu- 
manity, and so find a worthy death 
and a blessed reunion with the brave 
true heart whose love had more 
honoured him than all his victories 
in war. 

When the people heard this re- 
solve of his they came and told him 
there was a pitiless dragon in human 
disguise in the Haunted Cave, a dread 
creature which no knight had yet 
been bold enough to face, and begged 
him to rid the land of its desolating 
presence. He said he would do it. 
They told him about the song, and 
when he asked what song it was, they 
said the memory of it was gone, for 
nobody had been hardy enough to 
listen to it for the past four years and 
more. 

Towards midnight the Crusader 
came floating down the river in a boat, 
with his rusty cross-bow in his hands, 
the dim reflections of the crags and trees, with his intent eyes fixed 
upon the low cliff which he was approaching. As he drew nearer he 




MOUTH OP THE CAVERN. 



He drifted silently through 



118 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



discerned the black mouth of the cave. Now, — is that a white 
figure ? Yes. The plaintive song begins to well forth and float away 




A FATAL MISTAKE. 

over meadow and river, — the crossbow is slowly raised to position, a 




A CRUSADEB AND HIS LADY. 

steady aim is taken, the bolt flies straight to the mark, the figure sinks 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 119 

down, still singing, the knight takes the wool out of his ears, and 
recognises the old ballad, — too late ! Ah, if he had only not put 
the wool in his ears ! 

The Crusader went away to the wars again, and presently fell 
in battle, fighting for the Cross. Tradition says that during several 
centuries the spirit of the unfortunate girl sang nightly from the cave 
at midnight, but the music carried no curse with it; and although 
many listened for the mysterious sounds few were favoured, since 
only those could hear them who had never failed in a trust. It is 
believed that the singing still continues, but it is known that nobody 
has heard it during the present century. 



120 A TRAMP ABROAD 



CHAPTER XVL 



AN ANCIENT LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 



The last legend reminds one of the ' Lorelei ' — a legend of the Rhine, 
There is a song called ' The Lorelei.' 

Germany is rich in folk-songs, and the words and airs of several 
of them are peculiarly beautiful — but ' The Lorelei ' is the people's 
favourite. I could not endure it at first, but by-and-by it began to take 
hold of me, and now there is no tune which I like so well. 

It is not possible that it is much known in America, else I should 
have heard it there. The fact that I never heard it there is evidence 
that there are others in my country who have fared likewise; there- 
fore, for the sake of these,' I mean to print the words and the music 
in this chapter. And I will refresh the reader's memory by printing 
the legend of the Lorelei too. I have it by me in the ' Legends of 
the Rhine,' done into English by the wildly gifted G-arnham, Bachelor 
of Arts. I print the legend partly to refresh my own memory, too, 
for I have never read it before. 

THE LEGEND. 

Lore (two syllables) was a water nymph who used to sit on a 
hi°h rock called Ley or Lei (pronounced like our word lie) in the 
Rhine, and lure boatmen to destruction in a furious rapid which marred 
the channel at that spot. She so bewitched them with her plaintive 
songs and her wonderful beauty, that they forgot everything else to 
gaze up at her, and so they presently drifted among the broken reefs 
and were lost. 

In those old, old times the Count Bruno lived in a great castle near 
there with his son the Count Hermann, a youth of twenty. Hermann 
had heard a great deal about the beautiful Lore, and had finally fallen 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



121 



very deeply in love with her without having yet seen her. So he 
used to wander to the neighbourhood of the Lei, evenings, with his 
zither and 'Express his Longing in low Singing,' as Garnham says. 
On one of these occasions, 'suddenly there hovered around the top 
of the rock a brightness of unequalled clearness and colour, which, 
in increasing smaller circles thickened, was the enchanting figure of 
the beautiful Lore. 

' An unintentional cry of Joy 
escaped the Youth, he let his 
Zither fall, and with extended 
arms he called out the name of 
the enigmatical Being, who 
seemed to stoop lovingly to him 
and beckon to him in a friendly 
manner ; indeed, if his ear did not 
deceive him, she called his name 
with unutterable sweet Whispers, 
proper to love. Beside himself 
with delight, the youth lost his 
Senses and sank senseless to the 
earth.' 

After that he was a changed 
person. He went dreaming 
about, thinking only of his 
fairy and caring for nought 
else in the world. ' The old 
Count saw with affliction this changement in his son,' whose cause 
he could not divine, and tried to divert his mind into cheerful channels, 
but to no purpose. Then the old Count used authority. He com- 
manded the youth to betake himself to the camp. Obedience was 
promised. Garnham says : — 

' It was on the evening before his departure, as he wished still once 
to visit the Lei and offer to the Nymph of the Rhine his Sighs, the 
tones of his Zither, and his Songs. He went, in his boat, this time 
accompanied by a faithful squire, down the stream. The moon shed 
her silvery light over the whole Country ; the steep bank mountains 
appeared in the most fantastical shapes, and the high oaks on either 




THE LORELEI. 



122 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

side bowed their Branches on Hermann's passing. As soon as he 
approached the Lei, and was aware of the surf- waves, his attendant 
was seized with an inexpressible Anxiety, and he begged permission to 
land ; but the Knight swept the strings of his Guitar and sang : 

' Once I saw thee in dark night, 

1 n supernatural Beauty bright ; 
Of Light-rays -was the Figure wove, 

To share its light, locked-hair strove. 

' Thy Garment colour wave-dove, 

By thy hand the sign of love, 
Thy eyes' sweet enchantment, 

Baying to me, oh ! enhancement. 

' Oh, wert thou but my sweetheart, 

How willingly thy love to part ! 
With delight I should be bound 

To thy rocky house in deep ground.' 

That Hermann should have gone to that place at all, was not wise ; 
that he should have gone with such a song as that in his mouth was a 
most serious mistake. The Lorelei did not ' call his name in unutter- 
able sweet Whispers' this time. No, that song naturally worked an 
instant and thorough * changement ' in her ; and not only that, but it 
stirred the bowels of the whole afflicted region round about there — for 

4 Scarcely had these tones sounded, everywhere there began tumult 
jmd sound, as if voices above and below the water. On the Lei rose 
flames, the Fairy stood above, as that time, and beckoned with her 
right hand clearly and urgently to the infatuated Knight, while with 
a, staff in her left she called the waves to her service. They began to 
mount heavenward ; the boat was upset, mocking every exertion ; the 
waves rose to the gunwale, and splitting on the hard stones, the Boat 
broke into Pieces. The youth sank into the depths, but the squire 
was thrown on shore by a powerful wave.' 

The bitterest things have been said about the Lorelei during many 
centuries, but surely her conduct upon this occasion entitles her to our 
respect. One feels drawn tenderly toward her and is moved to forget 
her many crimes and remember only the good deed that crowned and 
•closed her career. 

' The Fairy was never more seen ; but her enchanting tones hare 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



123 



often been heard. In the beautiful, refreshing, still nights of spring, 
when the moon pours her silver light over the Country, the listening 
shipper hears from the rushing of the waves, the echoing Clang of a 
wonderfully charming voice, which sings a song from the crystal castle, 
and with sorrow and fear he thinks on the young Count Hermann, 
seduced by the Nymph.' 

Here is the music and the German words by Heinrich Heine 
This song has been a 
favourite in Germany for 
forty years, and will re- 
main a favourite always, 
maybe. 

I have a prejudice 
against people who print 
things in a foreign lan- 
guage and add no transla- 
tion. When I am the 
reader, and the author |||l|i 
considers me able to do 9 
the translating myself, he 
pays me quite a nice compliment 
— but if he would do the translat- 
ing for me I would try to get along 
without the compliment. 

If I were at home, no doubt I 
could get a translation of this poem, 
but I am abroad and can't ; there- 
fore I will make a translation my- 
self. It may not be a good one, 
for poetry is out of my line, but it 
will serve my purpose — which is, to 
give the un-German young girl a jingle of words to hang the tune on 
until she can get hold of a good version, made by some one who is a 
poet and knows how to convey a poetical thought from one language 
to another. 




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12G A TRAMP ABROAD. 



THE LORELEI. 

I cannot divine what it meaneth, 

This haunting nameless pain: 
A tale of the bygone ages 

Keeps brooding through ray brain: 

The faint air cools in the gloaming, 

And peaceful flows the Rhine, 
The thirsty summits are drinking 

The sunset's flooding wine ; 

The loveliest maiden is sitting 

High-throned in yon blue air, 
Her golden jewels are shining, 

She combs her golden hair ; 

She combs with a comb that is golden, 

And sings a weird refrain 
That steeps in a deadly enchantment 

The listener's ravished brain : 

The doomed in his drifting shallop, 

Is tranced with the sad sweet tone, 
He sees not the yawning breakers, 

He sees but the maid alone : 

The pitiless billows engulf him ! — 

So perish sailor and bark ; 
And this, with her baleful singing, 

Is* 1 he Lorelei's gruesome work. 

I have a translation by Garnham, Bachelor of Arts, in the ' Legends 
of the Rhine, but it would not answer the purpose I mentioned above, 
because the measure is too nobly irregular ; it don't fit the tune snugly 
enough ; in places it hangs over at the ends too far, and. in other places 
one runs out of words before he gets to the end of a bar. Still, 
Garnham's translation has high merits, and I am not dreaming of 
leaving it out of my book. I believe this poet is wholly unknown in 
America and England ; I take peculiar pleasure in bringing him 
forward because I consider that I discovered him : 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 127 

THE LOEELEI. 
Translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A. 

I do not know what it signifies 

That I am* so sorrowful : 
A fable of old times so terrifies, 

Leaves my heart so thoughtful. 

The air is cool and it darkens, 

And calmly flows the Rhine ; 
The summit of the mountain hearkens 

In evening sunshine line. 

The most beautiful Maiden entrances 

Above wonderfully there, 
Her beautiful golden attire glances, 

She combs her golden hair. 

With golden comb so lustrous, 

And thereby a song sings, 
It has a tone so wondrous, 

That powerful melody rings. 

The shipper in the little ship 

It affects with woe's sad might; 
He does not see the rocky clip, 

He only regards dreaded height. 

I believe the turbulent waves 

Swallow at last shipper and boat ; 
She with her singing craves 

All to visit her magic moat. 

No translation could be closer. He has got in all the facts ; and 
in their regular order too. There is not a statistic wanting. It is as 
succinct as an invoice. That is what a translation ought to be ; it 
should exactly reflect the thought of the original. You can't sing 
1 Above wonderfully there,' because it simply won't go to the tune, 
without damaging the singer ; but it is a most clingingly exact transla- 
tion of Dort oben wunderbar — fits it like a blister. Mr. Garnham's 
reproduction has other merits — a hundred of them — but it is not 
necessary to point them out. They will be detected. 



128 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

No one with a specialty can hope to have a monopoly of it. Even 
Garnham has a rival. Mr. X. had a small pamphlet with him which 
he had bought while on a visit to Munich. It was entitled ' A 
Catalogue of Pictures in the Old Pinacotek,' and was written in a 
peculiar kind of English. Here are a few extracts : 

'It is not permitted to make use of the work in question to a 
publication of the same contents as well as to the pirated edition of it.' 

' An evening landscape. In the foreground near a pond and a group 
of white beeches is leading a footpath animated by travellers.' 

' A learned man in a cynical and torn dress holding an open book 
in his hand.' 

' St. Bartholomew and the Executioner with the kniie to fulfil the 
martyr.' 

1 Portrait of a young man. A long while this picture was thought 
to be Bindi Altoviti's portrait ; now somebody will again have it to be 
the self-portrait of Raphael.' 

' Susan bathing, surprised by the two old men. In the background 
the lapidation of the condemned.' 

(' Lapidation ' is good ; it is much more elegant than ' stoning.') 

1 St. Rochus sitting in a landscape with an angel who looks at hia 
plague-sore, whilst the dog the bread in his mouth attents him/ 

' Spring. The Goddess Flora, sitting. Behind her a fertile valley 
perfused by a river.' 

' A beautiful bouquet animated by May-bugs, &c.' 

1 A warrior in armour with a gypseous pipe in his hand leans 
against the table and blows the smoke far away of himself.' 

1 A Dutch landscape along a navigable river which perfuses it till 
to the background.' 

' Some peasants singing in a cottage. A woman lets drink a child 
out of a cup.' 

' St. John's head as a boy — painted in fresco on a brick.' (Meaning 
a tile.) 

' A young man of the Riccio family, his hair cut off right at the 
end, dressed in black with the same cap. Attributed to Raphael, but 
the signation is false.' 

1 The Virgin holding the Infant. Is very painted in the manner of 
Sassoferrato.' 



A TEA MP ABROAD. 



129 



' A Larder with greens and dead game animated by a cook-maid 
and two kitchen-boys.' 

However, the English of this catalogue is at least as happy as that 
which distinguishes an inscription upon a certain picture in Kome — 
to wit : — 

' Revelations-View. St. John in Patterson's Island.' 

But meantime the raft is moving on. 




loO A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

A mile or two above Eberbach we saw a peculiar ruin projecting above 
the foliage which clothed the peak of a high and very steep hill. This 
ruin consisted of merely a couple of crumbling masses of masonry 
which bore a rude resemblance to human faces ; they leaned forward' 
and touched foreheads, and had the look of being absorbed in conversa- 
tion. This ruin had nothing very imposing or picturesque about it r 
and there was no great deal of it, yet it was called the ' Spectacular 
Bum.' 

LEGEND OF THE 'SPECTACULAR RUIN.' 

The captain of the raft, who was as full of history as he could stick r 
said that in the Middle Ages a most prodigious fire-breathing dragon 
used to live in that region, and made more trouble than a tax collector. 
He was as long as a railway train, and had the customary impenetrable 
green scales all over him. His breath bred pestilence and conflagra- 
tion, and his appetite bred famine. He ate men and cattle impartially,, 
and was exceedingly unpopular. The German emperor of that day 
made the usual offer ; he would grant to the destroyer of the dragon 
any one solitary thing he might ask for ; for he had a surplusage of 
daughters, and it was customary for dragon-killers to take a daughter 
for pay. 

So the most renowned knights came from the four corners of the 
earth and retired down the dragon's throat one after the other. A 
panic arose and spread. Heroes grew cautious. The procession ceased. 
The dragon became more destructive than ever. The people lost all 
hope of succour, and fled to the mountains for refuge. 

At last, Sir Wissenschaft, a poor and obscure knight, out of a far 
country, arrived to do battle with the monster. A pitiable object he 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



131 



was, with his armour hanging in rags about him, and his strange- 
shaped knapsack strapped upon his back. Everybody turned up their 
noses at him, and some openly 
jeered him. But he was calm. 
He simply inquired if the em- 
peror's offer was still in force. 
The emperor said it was — but 
charitably advised him to go 
and hunt hares, and not en- 
danger so precious a life as his 
in an attempt which had brought 
death to so many of the world's 
most illustrious heroes. 

But this tramp only asked — 
1 Were any of these heroes men 
of science ? ' This raised a 
laugh, of course, for science was 
despised in those days. But 
the tramp was not in the least 
ruffled. He said he might be a 
little in advance of his age, but 
no matter — science would come 
to be honoured, some time or 
other. He said he would march 
against the dragon in the morn- 
ing. Out of compassion, then, 

a decent spear was offered him, but he declined, and said, ' spears 
were useless to men of science.' They allowed him to sup in the 
servants' hall, and gave him a bed in the stables. 

When he started forth in the morning, thousands were gathered to 
see. The emperor said — 

' Do not be rash ; take a spear, and leave off your knapsack.' 

But the tramp said — 

' It is not a knapsack,' and moved straight on. 

The dragon was waiting and ready. He was breathing forth vast 
volumes of sulphurous smoke and lurid blasts of flame. The ragged 
knight stole warily to a good position, then he unslung his cylindrical 

k2 




THE UNKNOWN KNIGHT. 



132 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



knapsack — which was simply the common fire-extinguisher known to 
modern times — and the first chance he got he turned on his hose and 
shot the dragon square in the centre of his cavernous mouth. Out 
went the fires in an instant, and the dragon curled up and died. 

This man had brought brains to his aid. He had reared dragons 
from the egg, in his laboratory ; he had watched over them like a 
mother, and patiently studied them and experimented upon them while 
they grew. Thus he had found out that fire was the life principle of 
a dragon ; put out the dragon's fires and it could make steam no longer, 
and must die. He could not put out a fire with a spear, therefore he 

invented the extinguisher. The 
dragon being dead, the emperor 
fell on the hero's neck and said — 
'Deliverer, name your request,' 
at the same time beckoning out 
behind with his heel for a detach- 
ment of his daughters to form 
and advance. But the tramp gave 
them no observance. He simply 
said — 

' My request is, that upon me 
be conferred the monopoly of the 
manufacture and sale of spectacles 




THE EMBRACE. 



in Germany.' 

The emperor sprang aside, and exclaimed — 

' This transcends all the impudence I ever heard ! A modest de- 
mand, by my halidome ! Why didn't you ask for the imperial revenues 



at once, and be done with it ? ' 



But the monarch had given his word, and he kept it. To every- 
body's surprise, the unselfish monopolist immediately reduced the price 
of spectacles to such a degree that a great and crushing burden was 
removed from the nation. The emperor, to commemorate this generous 
act, and to testify his appreciation of it, issued a decree commanding 
everybody to buy this benefactor's spectacles and wear them, whether 
they needed them or not. 

So originated the widespread custom of wearing spectacles in Ger- 
many ; and as a custom once established in these old lands is imperish- 



A IB A MP ABB AD. 



133 



able, this one remains universal in the empire to this day. Such ia 
the legend of the monopolist's once stately and sumptuous castle, now- 
called the ' Spectacular Ruin.' 

On the right bank, two or three miles below the Spectacular Ruin, 
we passed by a noble pile of castellated buildings overlooking the 
water from the crest of a lofty elevation. A stretch of two hundred 
yards of the high front wall was heavily draped with ivy, and out of 
the mass of buildings within rose three picturesque old towers. The 
place was in fine order, and was inhabited by a family of princely rank. 




PERILOUS POSITION. 

This castle had its legend, too, but I should not feel justified in repeat- 
ing it, because I doubted the truth of some of its minor details. 

Along in this region a multitude of Italian labourers were blasting 
away the frontage of the hills to make room for the new railway. They 
were fifty or a hundred feet above the river. As we turned a sharp 
corner they began to wave signals and shout warnings to us to look 
out for the explosions. It was all very well to warn us, but what could 
we do ? You can't back a raft up stream, you can't hurry it down 
stream, you can't scatter out to one side when you haven't any room 
to speak of, you won't take to the perpendicular cliffs on the other 



134 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

shore when they appear to be blasting there too. Your resources are 
limited, you see. There is simply nothing for it but to watch and 
pray. 

For some hours we had been making three and a half or four miles 
an hour, and we were still making that. We had been dancing right 
along until these men began to shout, then for the next ten minutes 
it seemed to me that I had never seen a raft go so slowly. When the 
first blast went off we raised our sun-umbrellas and waited for the result. 
No harm done ; none of the stones fell in the water. Another blast 
followed, and another, and another. Some of the rubbish fell in the 
water just astern of us. 

We ran that whole battery of nine blasts in a row, and it was cer- 
tainly one of the most exciting and uncomfortable weeks I ever spent, 
either aship or ashore. Of course we frequently manned the poles 
and shoved earnestly for a second or so, but every time one of those 
spurts of dust and debris shot aloft every man dropped his pole and 
looked up to get the bearings of his share of it. It was very busy 
times along there for a while. It appeared certain that we must perish, 
but even that was not the bitterest thought ; no, the abjectly unheroic 
nature of the death — that was the sting — that and the bizarre wording 
of the resulting obituary — ' Shot with a rock on a raft.' There would 
be no poetry written about it. None could be written about it. 

Example : — 

Not by war's shock, or war's shaft — 
Shot, with a rock, on a raft. 

No poet who valued his reputation would touch such a theme as that. 
I should be distinguished as the only ' distinguished dead ' who went 
down to the grave unsonnetted in 1878. 

But we escaped, and I have never regretted it. The last blast was 
a peculiarly strong one, and after the small rubbish was done raining 
around us and we were just going to shake hands over our deliverance, 
a later and larger stone came down amongst our little group of pedes- 
trians and wrecked an umbrella. It did no other harm, but we took to 
the water just the same. 

It seems that the heavy work in the quarries and the new railway 
gradings is done mainly by Italians. That was a revelation. We have 
the notion in our country that Italians never do heavy work at all, but 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 135 

confine themselves to the lighter arts, like organ-grinding, operatic 
singing, and assassination. We have blundered, that is plain. 

All along the river, near every village, we saw little station houses 
for the future railway. They were finished and waiting for the rails 
and business. They were as trim and snug and pretty as they could 
be. They were always of brick or stone ; they were of graceful shape ; 
they had vines and flowers about them already, and around them the 
grass was bright and green, and showed that it was carefully looked 
after. They were a decoration to the beautiful landscape, not an 
offence. Wherever'one saw a pile of gravel or a pile of broken stone, 
it was always heaped as trimly and exactly as a new grave or a stack 
of cannon-balls ; nothing about those stations, or along the railroad or 
the waggon road was allowed to look shabby or be un-ornamental. The 
keeping a country in such beautiful order as Germany exhibits, has a 
Avise practical side to it, too, for it keeps thousands of people in work 
and bread who would otherwise be idle and mischievous. 

As the night shut down, the captain wanted to tie up, but I 
thought maybe we might make Hirschhorn, so we went on. Presently 
the sky became overcast, and the captain came aft looking uneasy. He 
cast his eye aloft, then shook his head, and said it was coming on to 
blow. My party wanted to land at once, therefore I wanted to go on. 
The captain said we ought to shorten sail, anyway, out of common pru- 
dence. Consequently the larboard watch was ordered to lay in his pole. 
It grew quite dark now, and the wind began to rise. It wailed through 
the swaying branches of the trees and swept our decks in fitful gusts. 
Things were taking on an ugly look. The captain shouted to the steers- 
man on the forward log— 

' How's she heading? ' 

The answer came faint and hoarse from far forward — 

1 Nor'-east-and-by-nor' — east-by-east, half-east, sir.' 

' Let her go off a point ! ' 

' Ay- aye, sir ! ' 

' What water have you got ? ' 

1 Shoal, sir. Two foot large, on the stabboard, two and a half 
scant on the labboard ! ' 

' Let her go off another point I ' 

' Ay-aye, sir 1 ' 



136 



A Til AMP ABROAD. 



' Forward, men, all of you ! Lively, now ! Stand by to crowd 
her round the weather corner ! ' 

1 Ay-aye, sir ! ' 

Then followed a wild running and trampling and hoarse shouting, 
but the forms of the men were lost in the darkness, and the sounds 
were distorted and confused by the roaring of the wind through the 
shingle bundles. By this time the sea was running inches high, and 
threatening every moment to engulf the frail bark. Now came the 
mate hurrying aft, and said, close to the captain's ear, in a low, agitated 
voice — 

1 Prepare for the worst, sir — we have sprung a leak.' 




THE RAFT IX A STOUX 

' Heavens ! where ? ' 

* Right aft the second row of logs.' 

'Nothing but a miracle can save us. Don't let the men know, 
or there will be a panic and mutiny ! Lay her in shore, and stand 
by to jump with the stern-line the moment she touches. Gentlemen, I 
must look to you to second my endeavours in this hour of peril. You 
have hats — go forrard and bail for your lives ! ' 

Down swept another mighty blast of wind, clothed in spray and 
thick darkness. At such a moment as this, came from away forward 
that most appalling of all cries that are ever heard at sea — 

' Man overboard I ' 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



1.17 



The captain shouted — 

' Hard a-port ! Never mind the man ! Let him climb aboard or 
wade ashore ! ' 

Another cry came down the wind — 

' Breakers ahead ! ' 

' Where away ? ' 

'Not a log's length off her port fore-foot ! ' 

We had groped our slippery way forward, and were now bailing 
with the frenzy of despair, when we heard the mate's terrified cry, 
from far aft — 




ALL SAFE ON SHORE. 



I * Stop that dashed bailing, or we shall be aground ! ' 

But this was immediately followed by the glad shout — 

' Land aboard the starboard transom ! ' 

' Saved ! ' cried the captain. ' Jump ashore and take a turnaround 
a tree, and pass the bight aboard ! * 

The next moment we were all on shore weeping and embracing for 
joy, while the rain poured down in torrents. The captain said he had 
been a mariner for forty years on the Neckar, and in that time had seen 



138 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

storms to make a man's cheek blanch and his pulses stop, but he had 
never, never seen a storm that even approached this one. How familiar 
that sounded ! For I have been at sea a good deal, and have heard that 
remark from captains with a frequency accordingly. 

We framed in our minds the usual resolution of thanks and admira- 
tion and gratitude, and took the first opportunity to vote it, and put it 
in writing and present it to the captain, with the customary speech. 

We tramped through the darkness and the drenching summer rain 
full three miles, and reached ' The Naturalist Tavern,' in the village 
of Hirschhorn, just an hour before midnight, almost exhausted from 
hardship, fatigue, and terror. I can never forget that night. 

The landlord was rich, and therefore could afford to be crusty and 
disobliging ; he did not at all like being turned out of his warm bed 
to open his house for us. But no matter, his household got up and 
cooked a quick supper for us, and we brewed a hot punch for ourselves, 
to keep off consumption. After supper and punch we had an hour's 
soothing smoke while we fought the naval battle over again, and voted 
the resolutions ; then we retired to exceedingly neat and pretty cham- 
bers upstairs that had clean, comfortable beds in them with heirloom 
pillow-cases most elaborately and tastefully embroidered by hand. 

Such rooms and beds and embroidered linen are as frequent in 
German village inns as they are rare in ours. Our villages are superior 
to German villages in more merits, excellences, conveniences and privi- 
leges than I can enumerate, but the hotels do not belong in the list. 

1 The Naturalist Tavern ' was not a meaningless name ; for all the 
lialls and all the rooms were lined with large glass cases which were 
filled with all sorts of birds and animals, glass-eyed, ably stuffed, and 
set up in the most natural and eloquent and dramatic attitudes. The 
moment we were a-bed the rain cleared away, and the moon came out. 
I dozed off to sleep while contemplating a great white stuffed owl which 
was looking intently down on me from a high perch with the air of a 
person who thought he had met me before, but could not make out for 
-certain. 

But young Z. did not get off so easily. He said that as he was 
sinking deliciously to sleep, the moon lifted away the shadows, and deve- 
loped a huge cat, on a bracket, dead and stuffed, but crouching, with 
-every muscle tense, for a spring, and with its glittering glass eyes aimed 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



13» 



straight at him. It made Z. uncomfortable. He tried closing his own 
eyes, but that did not answer, for a natural instinct kept making him 
open them again to see if the cat was still getting ready to launch at 




' IT WAS THE CAT.' 



him, which she always was. He tried turning his back, but that was 
a failure ; he knew the sinister eyes were on him still. So at last he 
had to get up, after an hour or two of worry and experiment, and set 
the cat out in the hall. So he won, that time. 




HE HAD TO GET UP.' 



140 A TRAMP ABROAD 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

In the morning we took breakfast in the garden, under the trees, in the 
delightful German summer fashion. The air was filled with the fragrance 
of flowers and wild animals ; the living portion of the menagerie of the 
' Naturalist Tavern ' was all about us. There were great cages populous 
with fluttering and chattering foreign birds, and other great cages and 
greater wire pens, populous with quadrupeds, both native and foreign. 
There were some free creatures, too, and quite sociable ones they were. 
White rabbits went loping about the place, and occasionally came and 
sniffed at our shoes and shins; a fawn, with a red ribbon on its neck, 
walked up and examined us fearlessly ; rare breeds of chickens and 
doves begged for crumbs, and a poor old tailless raven hopped about 
with an humble, shame-faced mien, which said, ' Please do not notice 
my exposure — think how you would feel in my circumstances, and be 
charitable. 5 If he was observed too much he would retire behind some- 
thing, and stay there until he judged the party's interest had found 
another object I never have seen another dumb creature that was so 
morbidly sensitive. Bayard Taylor, who could interpret the dim reason- 
ings of animals, and understood their moraJ natures better than most 
men, would have found some way to make this poor old chap forget 
his troubles for a while, but we had not his kindly art, and so had to 
leave the raven to his griefs. 

After breakfast we climbed the hill and visited the ancient castle 
of Hirschhorn, and the ruined church near it. There were some 
curious old bas-reliefs leaning against the inner walls of the church — 
sculptured lords of Hirschhorn in complete armour, and ladies of 
Hirschhorn in the picturesque court costumes of the Middle Ages. 
These things are suffering damage and passing to decay ; for the last 
Hirschhorn has been dead two hundred years, and there is nobody 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



HI 



now who cares to preserve the family relics. In the chancel was a. 
twisted stone column, and the captain told us a legend about it, of 
course, for in the matter of legends he could not seem to restrain 



?P;r04/ tot 




BREAKFAST IN THE GARDES. 

himself; hut T do not repeat his tale, because there was nothing 
plausible about it, except that the Hero wrenched this column into its 
present screw-shape with his hands — just one single wrench. All the 
rest of the legend was doubtful. 

But Hirschhorn is best seen from a distance, down the river. Then 
the clustered brown towers perched on the green hilltop, and the old 
battlemented stone wall stretching up and over the grassy ridge and 
disappearing in the leafy sea beyond, make a picture whose grace and 
beauty entirely satisfy the eye. 

We descended from the church by steep stone stairways which curved 
this way and that down narrow alleys between the packed and dirty 
tenements of the village. It was a quarter well stocked with deformed, 
leering, unkempt and uncombed idiots, who held out hands or caps 
and begged piteously. The people of the quarter were not all idiots, 
of course, but all that begged seemed to be, and were said to be. 



142 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



I was thinking of going by skiff to the next town, Neckarsteinach ' f 
so I ran to the riverside in advance of the party, and asked a man there 
if he had a boat to hire. I suppose I must have spoken High Ger- 
man, — Court GermaD, — I intended it for that, anyway, — so he did not 
understand me. I turned and twisted my question around and about, 
trying to strike that man's average, but failed. He could not make 
out what I wanted. Now Mr. X. arrived, faced this same man, looked 
him in the eye, and emptied this sentence on him, in the most glib and 
confident way : — 

' Can man boat get here ? ' 

The mariner promptly understood and promptly answered. I can 
comprehend why he was able to understand that particular sentence, 
because by mere accident all the words in it except ' get ' have the 

same sound and the 
same meaning in Ger- 
man that they have in 
English; but how he 
managed to understand 
Mr. X.'s next remark 
puzzled me. I will 
insert it presently. X. 
turned away a moment, 
and I asked the mariner 
if he could not find a 
board, and so construct 
an additional seat. I. 
spoke in the purest Ger- 
man ; but I might as 
well have spoken in the 
purest Choctaw for all 
the good it did. The 
man tried his best to- 
understand me; he tried, 
and kept on trying^ 
harder and harder, until I saw it was really of no use, and said — 
' There, don't strain yourself; it is of no consequence.' 
Then X. turned to him and crisply said — 




EASILY L'NUCUSTOOD. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. U$ 

1 Machen Sie a flat board.' 

I wish my epitaph may tell the truth about me if the man did 
not answer up at once, and say he would go and borrow a board as- 
soon a3 he had lit the pipe which he was filling. 

We changed our mind about taking a boat, so we did not have to go, 
I have given Mr. X.'s two remarks just as he made them. Four of the 
five words in the first one were English, and that they were also German 
was only accidental, not intentional ; three out of the five words in the 
second remark were English, and English only, and the two German 
ones did not mean anything in particular, in such a connection. 

X. always spoke English to Germans, but his plan was to turn the 
sentence wrong end first and upside down, according to German con- 
struction, and sprinkle in a German word without any essential mean- 
ing to it, here and there, by way of flavour. Yet he always made 
himself understood. He could make those dialect-speaking raftsmen 
understand him, sometimes, when even young Z. had foiled with them ; 
and young Z. was a pretty good German scholar. For one thing, X. 
always spoke with such confidence — perhaps that helped. And possibly 
the raftsmen's dialect was what is called platt- Deutsch, and so they found 
his English more familiar to their ears than another man's German. 
Quite indifferent students of German can read Fritz Reuter's charming 
platt-Deutsch tales with some little facility because many of the word* 
are English. I suppose this is the tongue which our Saxon ancestor* 
carried to England with them. By-and-by I will inquire of some other 
philologist. 

However, in the meantime, it had transpired that the men employed 
to caulk the raft had found that the leak was not a leak at all, but 
only a crack between the logs — a crack which belonged there, and' 
was not dangerous, but had been magnified into a leak by the disordered 
imagination of the mate. Therefore we went aboard again with a good 
degree of confidence, and presently got to sea without accident. As- 
we swam smoothly along between the enchanting shores, we fell to 
swapping notes about manners and customs in Germany and else- 
where. 

As I write, now, many months later, I perceive that each of us, by 
observing and noting and inquiring diligently and day by day, had 
managed to lay in a most varied and opulent stock of misinformation. 



144 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

But this is not surprising ; it is very difficult to get accurate details in 
any country. 

For example, I had the idea once, in Heidelberg, to find out all 
about those five student corps. I started with the White Cap Corps. 
I began to inquire of this and that and the other citizen, and here is 
what I found out : — 

1. It is called the Prussian Corps, because none but Prussians are 
admitted to it. 

2. It is called the Prussian Corps ior no particular reason. It has 
simply pleased each corps to name itself after some German State. 

3. It is not named the Prussian Corps at all, but only the White 
Cap Corps. 

4. Any student can belong to it who is a German by birth. 

5. Any student can belong to it who is European by birth. 

6. Any European-born student can belong to it, except he be a 
Frenchman. 

7. Any student can belong to it, no matter where he was born. 

8. No student can belong to it who is not of noble blood. 

9. No student can belong to it who cannot show three full genera- 
tions of noble descent. 

10. Nobility is not a necessary qualification. 

11. No moneyless student can belong to it. 

12. Money qualification is nonsense — such a thing has never been 
thought ot. 

I got some of this information from students themselves — students 
who did not belong to the corps. I finally went to headquarters — to 
the White Caps — where I would have gone in the first place if I had 
been acquainted. But even at headquarters I found difficulties; I 
perceived that there were things about the White Cap Corps which 
one member knew and another one didn't. It was natural ; for very 
few members of any organisation know all that can be known about it. 
1 doubt if there is a man or a woman in Heidelberg who would not 
answer promptly and confidently three out of every five questions about 
the White Cap Corps which a stranger might ask ; yet it is a very safe 
bet that two of the three answers would be incorrect every time. 

There is one German custom which is universal — the bowing cour- 
teously to strangers when sitting down at table or rising up from it. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



145 



This bow startles a stranger out of his self-possession, the first time it 
occurs, and he is likely to fall over a chair or something, in his 
embarrassment, but it pleases him nevertheless. One soon learns to 
expect this bow and be on the look-out and ready to return it ; but to 
learn to lead off and make the initial bow one's self is a difficult matter 
for a diffident man. One thinks, ' If I rise to go, and tender my bow 
and these ladies and gentlemen take it into their heads to ignore the 
custom of their nation, and not return it, how shall I feel in case I 
survive to feel anything ? ' Therefore he is afraid to venture. He 
sits out the dinner, and makes the strangers rise first and originate 
the bowing. A table d'hote dinner is a tedious affair for a man who 
seldom touches anything after the three first courses ; therefore I used 
to do some pretty dreary 
waiting because of my fears. 
It took me months to assure 
myself that those fears were 
groundless, but I did assure 
myself at last by experi- 
menting diligently through 
my agent. I made Harris 
get up and bow and leave : 
invariably his bow was re- 
turned, then I got up and 
bowed myself and retired. 

Thus my education pro- 
ceeded easily and comfort- 
ably for me, but not for 
Harris. Three courses of 
a table d'hote dinner were 
enough for me, but Harris 
preferred thirteen. 

Even after I had ac- 
quired full confidence, and 
no longer needed the agent's 
help, I sometimes encountered difficulties. Once at Baden-Baden I 
nearly lost a train because I could not be sure that three young ladies 
opposite me at table were Garmans, since I had not heard them speak ; 

L 




EXPERIMENTING THROUGH HARRIS. 



146 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

they might be American, they might be English, it was not safe to 
venture a. bow ; but just as I had got that far with my thought, one of 
them began a German remark, to my great relief and gratitude ; and 
before she had got out her third word, our bows had been delivered 
and graciously returned, and we were off. 

There is a friendly something about the German character which 
is very winning. When Harris and I were making a pedestrian tour 
through the Black Forest, we stopped at a little country inn for dinner 
one day ; two young ladies and a young gentleman entered and sat 
down opposite us. They were pedestrians, too. Our knapsacks were 
strapped upon our backs, but they had a sturdy youth along to carry 
theirs for them. All parties were hungry, so there was no talking. 
By-and-by the usual bows were exchanged, and we separated. 

As we sat at a late breakfast in the hotel at Alierheiligen, next 
morning, these young people entered and took places near us without 
observing us ; but presently they saw us and at once bowed and 
smiled ; not ceremoniously, but with the gratified look of people who 
have found acquaintances where they were expecting strangers. Then 
they spoke of the weather and the roads. We also spoke of the weather 
and the roads. Next, they said they had had an enjoyable walk, 
notwithstanding the weather. We said that that had been our case, 
too. Then they said they had walked thirty English miles the day 
before, and asked how many we had walked. I could not lie, so I 
told Hams to do it. Harris told them we had made thirty English 
miles, too. That was true ; we had ' made ' them, though we had had 
a little assistance here and there. 

After breakfast they found us trying to blast some information out of 
the dumb hotel clerk about routes, and observing that we were not 
succeeding pretty well, they went and got their maps and things, and 
pointed out and explained our course so clearly that even a New York 
detective could have followed it. And when we started they spoke 
out a hearty good-bye and wished us a pleasant journey. Perhaps 
l hey were more generous with us than they might have been with 
native wayfarers because we were a forlorn lot and in a strange land ; 
1 don't know ; I only know it was lovely to be treated so. 

Very well, I took an American young lady to one of the fine balls 
in Baden-Baden, one night, and at the entrance-door upstairs we were 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



U7 



: halted by an official — something about Miss Jones's dress was not 
according to rule; I don't remember what it was, now : something was 
wanting — her back hair, or a shawl, or a fan, or a shovel, or something. 
The official was ever so polite, and ever so sorry, but the rule was 
strict, and he could not let us in. It was very embarrassing, for many 
■eyes were on us. But now a richly dressed girl stepped out of the 
ball-room, inquired into the trouble, and said she could fix it in a 
moment. She took Miss Jones to the robing-room, and soon brought 




AT THE BALL-ROOM DOOR. 

her back in regulation trim, and then we entered the ball-room with 
this benefactress unchallenged. 

Being safe now, I began to puzzle through my sincere but un- 
grammatical thanks, when there was a sudden mutual recognition — the 
benefactress and I had met at Allerheiligen. Two weeks had not 
altered her good face, and plainly her heart was in the right place yet, 
but there was such a difference between these clothes and the clothes 
I had seen her in before, when she was walking thirty miles a day in 
the Black Forest, that it was quite natural that I had failed to recognise 
her sooner. I had on my other suit, too, but my German would betray 



148 ^L Til AMP ABROAD. 

me to a person who had heard it once, anyway. She brought her 
brother and sister, and they made our way smooth for that evening. 

Well, months afterwards, I was driving through the streets of Munich 
in a cab with a German lady, one day, when she said — 

1 There, that is Prince Ludwig and his wife, walking along there/ 

Everybody was bowing to them — cabmen, little children, and every- 
body else — and they were returning all the bows and overlooking 
nobody, when a young lad§r met them and made a deep curtsey. 

1 That is probably one of the ladies of the court,' said my German 
friend. 

I said — 

1 She is an honour to it, then. I know her. I don't know her 
name, but I know her. I have known her at Allerheiligen and Baden- 
Baden. She ought to be an Empress, but she may be only a Duchess; 
it is the way things go in this world.' 

If one asks a German a civil question, he will be quite sure to get a 
civil answer. If you stop a German in the street and ask him to direct 
you to a certain place, he shows no sign of feeling offended. If the 
place be difficult to find, ten to one the man will drop his own matters 
and go with you and show you. In London, too, many a time, strangers 
have walked several blocks with me to show me my way. There is 
something very real about this sort of politeness. Quite often, in 
Germany, shopkeepers who could not furnish me the article I wanted,, 
have sent one of their employes with me to show me a place where it 
could be had. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. U9 



CHAPTER XIX. 

However, I wander from the raft. We made the port of Neckarsteinach 
in good season, and went to the hotel and ordered a trout dinner, the 
same to be ready against our return from a two -hour pedestrian 
excursion to the village and castle of Dilsberg, a mile distant, on the 
other side of the river. I do not mean that we proposed to be two 
hours making two miles — no, we meant to employ most of the time 
in inspecting Dilsberg. 

For Dilsberg is a quaint place. It is most quaintly and pictur- 
esquely situated, too. Imagine the beautiful river before you ; then 
a few rods of brilliant green sward on its opposite shore ; then a 
sudden hill — no preparatory gently-rising slopes, but a sort of instan- 
taneous hill — a hill two hundred and fifty or three hundred feet high, 
as round as a bowl, with the same taper upward that an inverted bowl 
has, and with about the same relation of height to diameter that dis- 
tinguishes a bowl of good honest depth — a hill which is thickly clothed 
with green bushes — a comely, shapely hill, rising abruptly out of the 
dead level of the surrounding green plains, visible from a great distance 
down the bends of the river, and with just exactly room on the top of 
its head for its steepled and turreted and roof-clustered cap of architec- 
ture, which same is tightly jammed and compacted within the perfectly 
round hoop of the ancient village wall. 

There is no house outside the wall on the whole hill, or any vestige 
of a former house ; all the houses are inside the wall, but there isn't 
room for another one. It is really a finished town, and has been finished 
a very long time. There is no space between the wall and the first 
circle of buildings ; no, the village wall is itself the rear wall of the 
first circle of buildings, and the roofs jut a little over the wall and thus 
furnish it with eaves. The general level of the massed roofs is grace- 



150 



A TRAMP ABB A P. 








DILSBERG. 



fully broken and relieved by the dominating towers of the ruined 

castle and the tall spires of a couple 
of churches ; so, from a distance, 
Dilsberg has rather more the look 
of a king's crown than a cap. 
That lofty green eminence and its 
quaint coronet form quite a strik- 
ing picture, you may be sure, in the flush of the 
evening sun. 

We crossed over in a boat and began the ascent 
by a narrow, steep path, which plunged us at 
once into the leafy deeps of the bushes. But 
they were not cool deeps by any means, for the 
sun's rays were weltering hot, and there was 
little or no breeze to temper them. As we 
panted up the sharp ascent, we met brown, 
bare-headed and bare-footed boys and girls, 
occasionally, and sometimes men ; they 
came upon us without warning 
gave us good-day, flashed out 
of sight in the bushes, and 
were gone as suddenly and 
mysteriously as they had 
come. They were bound 
for the other side of the 
river to work. This path 
had been travelled by many 
generations of these people. 
They have always gone down 
to the valley to earn their 
bread, but they have always 
climbed their hill again to 
eat it, and to sleep in their 
snupr town. 



It is said that the Dils- 
do not emigrate 
much; they find that living 



bergers 




OUR ADVANCE ON T DILSBERG. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



151 



up there above the world, in their peaceful nest, is pleasanter than 
living down in the troublous world. The seven hundred inhabitants 
are all blood-kin to each other, too ; they have always been blood- 
kin to each other for fifteen hundred years ; they are simply one large 
family, and they like the home folks better than they like strangers, 
hence they persistently stay at home. It has been said that for ages 
Dilsberg has been merely a thriving and diligent idiot-factory. I saw 
no idiots there, but the captain said, ' Because o£ late years the 
government has taken to lugging them off to asylums and other- 
wheres ; and government wants to cripple the factory, too, and is trying 
to get these Dilsbergers to marry out of the family, but they don't 
like to.' 

The captain probably imagined all this, as modern science denies 
that the intermarrying of relatives deteriorates the stock. 




INSIDE THE TOWN. 



Arrived within the wall, we found the usual village sights and 
life. We moved along a narrow, crooked lane which had been paved 
in the Middle Ages. A strapping, rUddy girl was beating flax or 
some such stuff in a little bit of a goods-box of a barn, and she swung 
her flail with a will — if it was a flail ; I was not farmer enough to 
know what she was at; a frowsy, barelegged girl was herding half a 
dozen geese with a stick — driving them along the lane and keeping 
them out of the dwellings ; a cooper was at work in a shop which I 



152 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

know he did not make so large a thing as a hogshead in, for there was 
not room. In the front rooms of dwellings girls and women were cooking 
or spinning, and ducks and chickens were waddling in and out, over the 
threshold, picking up chance crumbs and holding pleasant converse ; 
a very old and wrinkled man sat asleep before his door, with his chin 
upon his breast, and his extinguished pipe in his lap ; soiled children 
were playing in the dirt everywhere along the lane, unmindful of 
the sun. 

Except the sleeping old man, everybody was at work, but the place 
w r as very still and peaceful, nevertheless; so still that the distant 
cackle of the successful hen smote upon the ear but little dulled by 
intervening sounds. That commonest of village sights was lacking 
here — the public pump, with its great stone tank or trough of limpid 
water, and its group of gossiping pitcher-bearers; for there is no well 
or fountain or spring on this tall hill ; cisterns of rain water are used. 

Our alpenstocks and muslin tails compelled attention, and as we 
moved through the village we gathered a considerable procession of 
little boys and girls, and so went in some state to the castle. It 
proved to be an extensive pile of crumbling walls, arches and towers, 
massive, properly grouped for picturesque effect, weedy, grass-grown, 
and satisfactory. The children acted as guides ; they walked us along 
the top of the highest wall, then took us up into a high tower and showed 
us a wide and beautiful landscape, made up of wavy distances of woody 
hills, and a nearer prospect of undulating expanses of green lowlands 
on the one hand, and castle-graced crags and ridges on the other, with 
the shining curves of the Neckar flowing between. But the principal 
show, the chief pride of the children, was the ancient and empty well 
in the grass-grown court of the castle. Its massive stone curb stands 
up three or four feet above ground, and is whole and uninjured. 
The children said that in the Middle Ages this well was four hundred 
feet deep, and furnished all the village with an abundant supply oi 
water, in war and peace. They said that in that old day its bottom 
was below the level of the Neckar, hence the water supply was inex- 
haustible. 

But there were some who believed it had never been a well at all, 
and was never deeper than it is now — eighty feet ; that at that depth 
a subterranean passage branched from it and descended gradually 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



153 



ifjf 



to a remote place in the valley, where it opened into somebody's 
cellar or other hidden recess, and that the secret of this locality is 
now lost. Those who hold this belief say that herein lies the explana- 
tion that Dilsberg, besieged by Tilley and many a soldier before him, 
was never taken : after the longest and closest sieges the besiegers 
were astonished to perceive that the besieged were as fat and hearty as 
ever, and as well furnished with munitions of war — therefore it must 
be that the Dilsbergers had been bringing these things in through the 
subterranean passage all the time. 

The children said that there was in truth a subterranean outlet down 
there, and they would prove it. So they set a great truss of straw on 
fire and threw it 
down the well, 
while we leaned on 
the curb and 
watched the glow- 
ing mass descend. 
It struck bottom 
and gradually 
burned out. No 
smoke came up. 
The childre 
clapped their hands 
and said — 

' You see ! No- 
thing makes so 

much smoke as burning straw — now 
if there is no subterranean outlet ? ' 

So it seemed quite evident that the subterranean outlet indeed 
existed. But the finest thing within the ruin's limits was a noble 
linden, which the children said was four hundred years old, and no 
doubt it was. It had a mighty trunk and a mighty spread of limb and 
foliage. The limbs near the ground were nearly the thickness of a 
barrel. 

That tree had witnessed the assaults of men in mail — how remote 
such a time seems, and how ungraspable is the fact that real men ever 
did fight in real armour ! — and it had seen the time when these 




^s^$m^my 



THE OLD WELL. 



where did the smok 



go to, 



154 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

broken arches and crumbling battlements were a trim and strong and 
stately fortress, fluttering its gay banners in the sun, and peopled with 
vigorous humanity, — how impossibly long ago that seems ! — and here 
it stands yet, and possibly may still be standing here, sunning itself 
and dreaming its historical dreams, when to-day shall have been 
joined to the days called ' ancient.' 

Well, we sat down under the tree to smoke, and the captain 
delivered himself of his legend. 

THE LEGEND OF DILSBEEG CASTLE. 

It was to this effect. In the old time there was once a great company 
assembled at the castle, and festivity ran high. Of course there was 
a haunted chamber in the castle, and one day the talk fell upon that. 
It was said that whoever slept in it would not wake again for fifty 
years. Now when a young knight named Conrad von Geisberg 
heard this, he said that if the castle were his he would destroy that 
chamber, so that no foolish person might have the chance to bring so 
dreadful a misfortune upon himself and afflict such as loved him with 
the memory of it. Straightway the company privately laid their heads 
together to contrive some way to get this superstitious young man to 
sleep in that chamber. And they succeeded — in this way. They 
persuaded his betrothed, a lovely mischievous young creature, niece 
of the lord of the castle, to help them in their plot. She presently 
took him aside and had speech with him. She used all her per- 
suasions, but could not shake him; he said his belief was firm that if 
he should sleep there he would wake no more for fifty years, and it 
made him shudder to think of it. Catharina began to weep. This 
was a better argument ; Conrad could not hold out against it. He 
yielded, and said she should have her wish if she would only smile and 
be happy again. She flung her arms about his neck, and the kisses 
she gave him showed that her thankfulness and her pleasure were 
very real. Then she flew to tell the company her success, and the 
applause she received made her glad and proud she had undertaken 
her mission, since all alone she had accomplished what the multitude 
had failed in. 

At midnight, that night, after the usual feasting, Conrad was taken 
to the haunted chamber and left there. He fell asleep, by-and-by. 



The 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 153 

When he awoke again and looked about him, his heart stood still 
with horror ! The whole aspect of the chamber was changed. The 
walls were mouldy and hung with ancient cobwebs ; the curtains and 
beddings were rotten ; the furniture was rickety and ready to fall to 
pieces. He sprang out of bed, but his quaking knees sank under him 
and he fell to the floor. 
( ' This is the weakness of age,' he said. 

1 He rose and sought his clothing. It was clothing no longer 
colours were gone, the gar- 
ments gave way in many 
places while he was putting 
them on. He fled, shudder- 
ing, into the corridor, and 
along it to the great hall. 
Here he was met by a 
middle-aged stranger of a 
kind countenance, who 
stopped and gazed at him 
with surprise. Conrad 

said — 

' Good sir, will you send 
hither the lord Ulrich ? ' 

The stranger looked puzzled a moment, then said — 

< The lord Ulrich ? ' 

' Yes — if you will be so good.' 

The stranger called — ' Wilhelm ! ' A young serving man came, 
and the stranger said to him — 

1 Is there a lord Ulrich among the guests ? ' 

* I know none of the name, so please your honour.' 

Conrad said, hesitatingly — 

' I did not mean a guest, but the lord of the castle, sir.' 

The stranger and the servant exchanged wondering glances. Then 
the former said — 

' I am the lord of the castle.' 

1 Since when, sir ? ' 

' Since the death of my father, the good lord Ulrich, more than 
forty years ago.' 




SEXD HITHER THE LOUD ULRICH.' 



156 ' A TRAMP ABROAD. 

Conrad sank upon a bench and covered his face with his hands 
while he rocked his body to and fro and moaned. The stranger said 
in a low voice to the servant — 

1 1 fear me this poor old creature is mad. Call some one.' 

In a moment seA^eral people came, and grouped themselves about 
talking in whispers. Conrad looked up and scanned the faces about 
him wistfully. Then he shook his head and said in a grieved voice — 

' No, there is none among ye that I know. I am old and alone in 
the world. They are dead and gone these many years that cared for 
me. Eut sure, some of these aged ones I see about me can tell me 
some little word or two concerning them.' 

Several bent and tottering men and women came nearer and 
answered his questions about each former friend as he mentioned the 
names. This one they said had been dead ten years, that one twenty, 
another thirty. Each succeeding blow struck heavier and heavier. At 
last the sufferer said — 

' There is one more, but I have not the courage to — my lost 
Catharina ! ' 

One of the old dames said — 

1 Ah, I knew her well, poor soul ! A misfortune overtook her 
lover, and she died of sorrow nearly fifty years ago. She lieth under 
the linden tree without the court.' 

Conrad bowed his head and said — 

' Ah, why did I ever wake ! A&d so she died oi grief for me, 
poor child. So young, so -sweet, so good. She never wittingly did a 
hurtful thing in all the little summer of her life. Her loving debt 
shall be repaid — for I will die of grief for her.' 

His head drooped upon his breast. In a moment there was a wild 
burst of joyous laughter, a pair of round young arms were flung about 
-Conrad's neck, and a sweet voice cried — 

1 There, Conrad mine, thy kind words kill me — the farce shall 
.go no further ! Look up, and laugh with us — 'twas all a jest ! ' 

And he did look up, and gazed, in a dazed wonderment — for the 
disguises were stripped away, and the aged men and women were bright 
and young and gay again. Catharina's happy tongue ran on — 

' 'Twas a marvellous jest, and bravely carried out. They gave 
you a heavy sleeping draught before you went to bed, and in the night 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



157 



they bore you to a ruined chamber where all had fallen to decay, and 
placed these rags of clothing by you, And when your, sleep was spent 
and you came forth, two strangers, well instructed in their parts, were 
here to meet you ; and all we, your friends, in our disguises, were 
close at hand, to see and hear, you may be sure. Ah, 'twas a gallant 
jest ! Come, now, and make thee ready for the pleasures of the day. 
How real was thy misery for the moment, thou poor lad ! Look up 
and have thy laugh, now ! ' 

He looked up, searched the merry faces about him in a dreamy 
way, then sighed and said — 




LEAD ME TO HER GRAVE.' 



* I am a- weary, good strangers ; I pray you lead me to her grave.' 

All the smiles vanished away, every cheek blanched, Catharina 
sank to the ground in a swoon. 

All day the people went about the castle with troubled faces, and 
communed together in under-tones. A painful hush pervaded the place 
which had lately been so full of cheery life. Each in his turn tried to 
arouse Conrad out of his hallucination and bring him to himself; but 
all the answer any got was a meek, bewildered stare, and then the 
words, — 

' Good stranger, I have no friends, all are at rest these many years ; 
ye speak me fair, ye mean me well, but I know ye not ; I am alone 
and forlorn in the world — prithee lead me to her grave, ' 



58 



.4 TRAMP ABROAD. 



During two years Conrad spent his days, from the early morning till 
the night, under the linden tree, mourning over the imaginary grave 
of his Catharina. Catharina was the only company of the harmless 
madman. He was very friendly toward her because, as he said, in 

some ways she reminded him 
of his Catharina whom he had 
lost ' fifty years ago.' He 
often said — 

' She was so gay, so 
happy-hearted — but you 
never smile ; and always 
when you think I am not 
looking, you cry.' 

When Conrad died, they 
buried him under the linden, 
according to his directions, 
so that he might rest ' near 
his poor Catharina.' Then 
Catharina sat under the linden 
alone, every day and all day 
long, a great many years, 
speaking to no one, and 
b repentance was rewarded with 




UNDER THE LINDEN. 

never smiling; and at last her Ion 
death, and she was buried by Conrad's side. 

Harris pleased the captain by saying it was a good legend ; and 
pleased him further by adding — 

* Now that I have seen this mighty tree, vigorous with its four 
hundred years, I feel a desire to believe the legend for its sake ; so I 
will humour the desire, and consider that the tree really watches 
over those poor hearts and feels a sort of human tenderness for them.' 

We returned to Neckarsteinach, plunged our hot heads into the 
trough at the town pump, and then Went to the hotel and ate our trout 
dinner in leisurely comfort, in the garden, with the beautiful Neckar 
flowing at our feet, the quaint Dilsberg looming beyond, and the 
graceful towers and battlements of a couple of mediaeval castles (called 
the 'Swallow's Nest' 1 and 'The Brothers') assisting the rugged 

1 The seeker after information is referred to Appendix E for our Captain's 
Legend of the ' Swallow's Nest ' and ' The Brothers,' 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



159 



scenery of a bend of 
the river down to our 
right. We got to sea 
in season to make the 
eight-mile run to 
Heidelberg before the 
night shut down. We 
sailed by the hotel in 
the mellow glow of 
sunset, and came 
slashing down with 
the mad current into 
the narrow passage 
between the dykes. I 
believed I could shoot 
the bridge myself, so 
I went to the forward 
triplet of logs and 
relieved the pilot of 
his pole and his re- 
sponsibility. 

We went tearing 
along in a most ex- 
hilarating way, and I 





SOATTERATJON. 



AN EXCELLENT PILOT— ONCE 

performed the delicate duties 
of my office very well indeed 
for a first attempt ; but per- 
ceiving, presently, that I really 
was going to shoot the bridge 
itself instead of the archway 
under it, I judiciously stepped 
ashore. The next moment I 
7//A had my long coveted desire : I 
saw a raft wrecked. It hit 
the pier in the centre and 
went all to smash and scattera- 
tion like a box of matches 
struck by lightning. 



160 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



I was the only one of our party who saw this grand sight ; the 
others were attitudinising, for the benefit of the long rank of young 
ladies who were promenading on the bank, and so they lost it. But 
I helped to fish them out of the river, down below the bridge, and 
then described it to them as well as I could. They were not 
interested, though. They said they were wet and felt ridiculous, and 
did not care anything for descriptions of scenery. The young ladies,, 
and other people, crowded around and showed a great deal of 
sympathy, but that did not help matters ; for my friends said they did 
not want sympathy, they wanted a back alley and solitude. 




THE RIVER BATH. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 1C1 



CHAPTER XX. 

Next morning brought good news — our trunks had arrived from 
Hamburg at last. Let this be a warning to the reader. The Germans 
are very conscientious, and this trait makes them very particular. 
Therefore if you tell a German 3'ou want a thing done immediately, 
he takes you at your word; he thinks you mean what you say; so 
he does that thing immediately — according to his idea of immediately 
— which is about a week ; that is, it is a week if it refers to the build- 
ing of a garment, or it is an hour and a half if it refers to the cooking 
of a trout. Very well ; if you tell a German to send your trunk to you 
by ' slow freight,' he takes you at your word ; he sends it by ' slow 
freight,' and you cannot imagine how long you will go on enlarg- 
ing your admiration of the expressiveness of that phrase in the German 
tongue, before you get that trunk. The hair on my trunk was soft 
and thick and useful, when I got it ready for shipment in Hamburg ; 
it was baldheaded when it reached Heidelberg. However, it was 
still sound, that was a comfort, it was not battered in the least; 
the baggagemen seemed to be conscientiously careful, in Germany, of 
the baggage entrusted to their hands. There was nothing now in the 
way of our departure, therefore we set about our preparations. 

Naturally my chief solicitude was about my collection of Keramics. 
Of course I could not take it with me ; that would be inconvenient, 
and dangerous besides. I took advice, but the best bric-a-brackers 
were divided as to the wisest course to pursue : some said, pack the 
collection and warehouse it ; others said, try to get it into the Grand 
Ducal Museum at Mannheim for safe keeping. So I divided the collec- 
tion, and followed the advice of both parties. I set aside for the Museum 
those articles which were the most frail and precious. 

M 



162 



A TEA MP ABROAD. 



it i>» 
four 




Among these was my Etruscan tear-jug. I have made a litt? 
sketch of it here. That thing creeping up the side is not a bug : 
a hole. I bought this tear-jug of a dealer in antiquities for 
hundred and fifty dollars. It is very rare. The man 
said the Etruscans used to keep tears or. something in 
these things, and that it was very hard to get hold 
of a broken one now. I also set aside my Henri II. 
plate. See sketch from my pencil ; it is in the main 
correct though I think I have foreshortened one end 
of it a little too much, perhaps. This is very fine and 
rare; the shape is exceedingly beautiful and unusual. 
It has wonderful decorations on it, but I am not able 
to reproduce them. It cost more than the tear-jug, as the dealer said 
there was not another plate just like it in the world. He said there 
was much false Henri II. ware around, but that 
the genuineness of this piece was unquestionable. 
He showed me its pedigree, or its history if 
you please ; it was a document which traced 
this plate's movements all the way down from its 
birth — showed who bought it, from whom, and 
what he paid for it — from the first buyer down 
to me, whereby I saw that it had gone steadily HENEI n - plate. 
up from thirty-five cents to seven hundred dollars. He said that the 
whole Keramic world would be informed that it was now in my pos- 
session and would make a note of it, with the price paid. 

I also set apart my exquisite 
specimen of Old Blue China. 
This is considered to be the 
finest example of Chinese art now 
in existence. I do not refer to- 
the bastard Chinese art of modern 
times, but that noble and pure 
and genuine art which flourished 
under the fostering and appre- 
ciative care of the Emperors of 
the Chung-a-Lung-Fung dyn- 
asty. 




0-^A 




OLD BLUE CH12TA. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 163 

There were Masters in those days; but alas ! it is not so now. Of 
course the main preciousness of this piece lies in its colour ; it is that 
old sensuous, pervading, ramifying, interpolating, transboreal blue which 
is the despair of modern art. The little sketch which I have made of 
this gem cannot and does not do it justice, since I have been obliged to 
leave out the colour. But I've got the expression though. 

However, I must not be frittering away the reader's time with 
these details. I did not intend to go into any detail at all, at first, but 
it is the failing of the true keramiker, or the true devotee in any 
department of bric-a-brackery, that once he gets his tongue or his pen 
started on his darling theme, he cannot well stop until he drops 
from exhaustion. He has no more sense of the flight of time than has 
any other lover when talking of his sweetheart. The very * marks ' on 
the bottom of a piece of rare crockery are able to throw me into a 
gibbering ecstasy; and I could forsake a drowning relative to help 
dispute about whether the stopple of a departed Buon Retiro scent- 
bottle was genuine or spurious. 

Many people say that for a male person, bric-a-brac hunting is about 
as robust a business as making doll-clothes, or decorating Japanese pots 
with decalcomanie butterflies would be, and these people fling mud at 
that elegant Englishman, Byng, who wrote a book called ' The Bric- 
a-Brac Hunter,' and make fun of him for chasing around after what 
they choose to call 'his despicable trifles;' and for 'gushing' over 
these trifles ; and for exhibiting his ' deep infantile delight ' in what 
they call his ' tuppenny collection of beggarly trivialities ; ' and for 
beginning his book with a picture of himself, seated, in a ' sappy, self- 
complacent attitude, in the midst of his poor little ridiculous bric-a-brac 
junk shop.' 

It is easy to say these things ; it is easy to revile us, easy to despise 
us ; therefore, let these people rail on ; they cannot feel as Byng and 
I feel — it is their loss, not ours. For my part I am content to be a 
bric-a-bracker and a keramiker — more, I am proud to be so named. 
I am proud to know that I lose my reason as immediately in the 
presence of a rare jug with an illustrious mark on the bottom of it, 
as if I had just emptied that jug. Very well ; I packed and stored a 
part of my collection, and the rest of it I placed in the care of the Grand 

m 2 



164 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Ducal Museum in Mannheim, by permission. My Old Blue China 
Cat remains there yet. I presented it to that excellent institution. 

I had but one misfortune with my things. An egg which I had 
kept back from breakfast that morning was broken in packing. It was a 
great pity. I had shown it to the best connoisseurs in Heidelberg, and 
they all said it was an antique. We spent a day or two in farewell 
visits, and then left for Baden-Baden. We had a pleasant trip of it, 

for the Ehine valley 



is always lovely. 
The only trouble was 
that the trip was too 
short. If I remember 
rightly, it only occu- 
pied a couple of 
hours ; therefore I 
judge that the dis- 
tance was very little, 
if any, over fifty miles. 
We quitted the train 
at Oos, and walked 
the entire remaining 
distance to Baden- 
Baden, with the ex- 
ception of a lift of less 
than an hour which 
we got on a passing 
waggon, the weather 
being exhaustingly 
warm. We came into 
town on foot. 




A REAL ANTIQUE. 



One of the first persons we encountered, as we walked up the 

street, was the Rev. Mr. , an old friend from America — a lucky 

encounter, indeed, for his is a most gentle, refined and sensitive nature, 
and his company and companionship are a genuine refreshment. We 
knew he had been in Europe some time, but were not at all expecting 
to run across him. Both parties burst forth into loving enthusiasms, 
and Rev. Mr. said — 




3RIC A- BRAG SHOP. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



1G7 



* I have got a brimful reservoir of talk to pour out on you, and an 
•empty one ready and thirsting to receive what you have got; we will 
«it up till midnight and have a good satisfying interchange, for I leave 
here early in the morning.' We agreed to that, of course. 

I had been vaguely conscious, for a while, of a person who was 
walking in the street abreast of us. I had glanced furtively at him once 
•or twice, and noticed that he was a fine, large, vigorous young fellow, 
with an open, independent countenance, faintly shaded with a pale 
and even almost imperceptible crop of early down, and that he was 
clothed from head to heel in cool and enviable snow-white linen. 
1 thought I had also noticed that his head had a sort of listening tilt 
to it. Now about this time the Rev. Mr. said — 



' The side -walk is hardly wide enough for three, so I will walk 
behind; but keep the talk going, keep the talk going, there's no 
time to lose, and you may be sure I will do my share.' He ranged 
himself behind us, and straightway that stately snow-white young 
fellow closed up to the side-walk alongside him, fetched him a cordial 
slap on the shoulder with his broad palm, and sung out with a hearty 
•cheeriness — 

'Americans, for two-and-a-half and the money up ! Hey ? ' 

' The Reverend winced, but said mildly, — 

1 Yes — we are Americans.' 

' Lord love 
you, you can just 
bet that's what I 
am, every time ! 
Put it there ! ' 

He held out his 
Sahara of a palm, 
and the Reverend 
laid his diminutive 
hand in it, and got 
so cordial a shake 
that we heard his 
glove burst under 
it. 

1 Say, didn't I put you up right ? 




TUT IT THERE. 



1C3 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



' O yes.' 

* Sho ! I spotted you for my kind the minute I heard your clack. 
You been over here long? ' 

1 About four months. Have you been over long ? ' 
' Long ? Well, I should say so ! Going on two years, by geeminy I 
Say, are you homesick ? ' 

' No, I can't say that I am. Are you ? ' 
1 Oh, hell, yes ! ' This with immense enthusiasm. 
The Reverend shrunk a little, in his clothes, and we were aware, 
rather by instinct than otherwise, that he was throwing out signals of 
distress to us ; but we did not interfere or try to succour him, for we 
were quite happy. 

The young fellow hooked his arm into the Reverend's now, with 
the confiding and grateful air of a waif who has been longing for a 
friend, and a sympathetic ear, and a chance to lisp once more the sweet 

accents of the mother tongue — and 
then he limbered up the muscles of his 
mouth and turned himself loose — and 
with such a relish ! Some of his 
words were not Sunday-school words, 
so I am obliged to put blanks where 
they occur. 

' Yes indeedy ! If i" ain't an 
American there ain't any Americans, 
that's all. And when I heard you 
fellows gassing away in the good old 

American language, I'm if it 

wasn't . all I could do to keep from 
hugging you ! My tongue's all warped 
with trying to curl it around these 
forsaken wind-galled nine- 
jointed German words here; now I tell you it's awful good to lay it 
over a Christian word once more and kind of let the old taste soak in. 
I'm from Western New YorK. My name is Cholley Adams. I'm a 
student, you know. Been here going on two years. I'm learning to 
be a horse-doctor. I like that part of it, you know, but these 




THE PARSON CAPTURED. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 169* 

people, they won't learn a fellow in his own language, they make 
him learn in German ; so before I could tackle the horse-doctoring I 
had to tackle this miserable language. 

' First-off, I thought it would certainly give me the botts, but I 
don't mind it now. I've got it where the hair's short, I think ; and 
dontchuknow, they made me learn Latin, too. Now between you and 

me, I wouldn't give a for all the Latin that was ever jabbered; 

and the first thing I calculate to do when I get through, is to just sit 
down and forget it. 'Twont take me long, and I don't mind the time, 
anyway. And I tell you what! the difference between school teaching 
over yonder and school-teaching over here — sho ! We don't know 
anything about it ! Here you've got to peg and peg and peg, and 
there just ain't any let-up — and what you learn here, you've got to 

know, dontchuknow — or else you'll have one of these 

spavined, spectacled, ring-boned, knock-kneed old professors in your 
hair. I've been heVe long enough, and I'm getting blessed tired of it, 
mind I tell you. The old man wrote me that he was coming over 
in June, and said he'd take me home in August, whether I was done 
with my education or not, but durn him, he didn't come ; never said 
why; just sent me a hamper of Sunday-school books, and told me to be 
good, and hold on a while. I don't take to Sunday-school books r 
dontchuknow — I don't hanker after them when I can get pie — but I 
read them, anyway, because whatever the old man tells me to do, 
that's the thing that I'm a-going to do, or tear something you know. I 
buckled in and read all of those books, because he wanted me to ; 
but that kind of thing don't excite me; I like something hearty. 
But I'm awful homesick, I'm homesick from ear- socket to crupper, 
and from crupper to hock joint; but it ain't any use, I've got to stay 
here, till the old man drops the rag and gives the word — yes, sir, right 

here in this country I've got to linger till the old man says 

Come ! — and you bet your bottom dollar, Johnny, it ain't just as 
easy as it is for a cat to have twins ! ' 

At the end of this profane and cordial explosion he fetched a pro- 
digious ' Whoosh I ' to relieve his lungs and make recognition of the 
heat, and then he straightway dived into his narrative again for 
* Johnny's ' benefit, beginning, ' Well, it ain't any use talking,. 



J70 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



some of those old American words do have a kind of a bully swing 
1o them ; a man can express himself with 'em — a man can get at what 
he wants to say, dontchuknow/ 

When we reached our hotel and it seemed that he was about to lose 
the Reverend, he showed so much sorrow, and begged so hard and so 
earnestly, that the Reverend's heart was not hard enough to hold out 
against the pleadings— so he went away with the parent-honouring 
student, like a right Christian, and took supper with him in his lodgings 
and sat in the surf-beat of his slang and profanity till near mid- 
night, and then left him— left him pretty well talked out, but grateful 
' clear down to his frogs,' as he expressed it. The Reverend said it had 
transpired during the interview that < Cholley ' Adams's father was 
an extensive dealer in horses in Western New York ; this accounted for 
Cholley's choice of a profession. The Reverend brought away a 
pretty high opinion of Cholley as a manly young fellow, with stuff in 
him for a useful citizen ; he considered him rather a rough gem, but a 
gem, nevertheless. 




AFTER IiDI 



A. TRAMP ABROAD. 171 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Baden-Baden sits in the lap of the hills, and the natural and artificial 
beauties of the surroundings are combined effectively and charmingly. 
The level strip of ground which stretches through and beyond the 
town is laid out in handsome pleasure grounds, shaded by noble trees 
and adorned at intervals with lofty and sparkling fountain -jets. Thrice 
a day a fine band makes music in the public promenade before the 
Conversation-House, and in the afternoons and evenings that locality 
is populous with fashionably dressed people of both sexes, who march 
back and forth past the great music stand and look very much bored, 
though they make a show of feeling otherwise. It seems like a rather 
aimless and stupid existence. A good many of these people are there 
for a real purpose, however; they are racked with rheumatism, and 
they are there to stew it out in the hot baths. These invalids looked 
melancholy enough, limping about on their canes and crutches, and 
apparently brooding over all sorts of cheerless things. People say that 
Germany, with her damp stone houses, is the home of rheumatism. If 
that is so, Providence must have foreseen that it would be so, and 
therefore filled the land with these healing baths. Perhaps no other 
country is so generously supplied with medicinal springs as Germany. 
Some of these baths are good for one ailment, some for another; 
and again, peculiar ailments are conquered by combining the individual 
virtues of several different baths. For instance, for some forms of 
disease the patient drinks the native hot water of Baden-Baden, with 
a spoonful of salt from the Carlsbad springs dissolved in it. That is not 
a dose to be forgotten right away. 

They don't sell this hot water ; no, you go into the great Trinkhalle, 
and stand around, first on one foot and then on the other, while two 
or three young girls sit pottering at some sort of lady-like sewing work 



172 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



in your neighbourhood and can't seem to see you — polite as three-dollar 
clerks in government offices. 

By-and-by oner 
o£ these rises pain- 
f ul ly , and 

'stretches'; — 
stretches fists and 
body heavenward 
till she raises her 
heels from the floor, 
at the same time 
refreshing herself 
with a yawn of such 
comprehensivene s s 
that the bulk of her 
face disappears be- 
hind her upper lip, 
and one is able to- 
see how she is con- 
structed inside- 
then she slowly 
closes her cavern, 
brings down her 
fists and her heels, 
comes languidly for- 
ward, contemplates 
you contemptu- 
ously, draws you a 
glass of hot water 
and sets it down 
where you can get 
a comprehensive yaws. it by reaching for 

it. You take it and say — 

' How much ? ' and she returns you, with elaborate indifference, 

a beggar's answer — 

1 Nach Beliebe (what you please).' 

This thing of using the common beggar's trick and the common 




A TRAMP ABROAD. 173 

beggar's shibboleth to put you on your liberality when you were ex- 
pecting a simple straightforward commercial transaction, adds a little 
to your prospering sense of irritation. You ignore her reply, and ask 
again — 

1 How much ? ' 
And she calmly, indifferently, repeats — 

' Nach Beliebe: 

You are getting angry, but you are trying not to show it; you 
resolve to keep on asking your question till she changes her answer, or 
at least her annoy ingly indifferent manner. Therefore, if your case 
be like mine, you two fools stand there, and without perceptible emo- 
tion of any kind, or any emphasis on any syllable, you look blandly 
into each other's eyes, and hold the following idiotic conversation — 

1 How much ? ' 

' Nach Beliebe.' 

1 How much ? ' 

< Nach Beliebe. 1 
« How much?' 

1 Nach Beliebe. 1 
* How much ? ' 
« Nach Beliebe.* 
1 How much ? ' 
' Nach Beliebe.' 
4 How much ? ' 

< Nach Beliebe.' 

I do not know what another person would have done, but at this 
point I gave it up ; that cast-iron indifference, that tranquil con- 
temptuousness, conquered me, and I struck my colours. Now I 
knew she was used to receiving about a penny from manly people 
who care nothing about the opinions of scullery maids, and about 
tuppence from moral cowards; but I laid a silver twenty-five -cent 
piece within her reach and tried to shrivel her up with this sarcastic 
speech — 

1 If it isn't enough, will you stoop sufficiently from your official 
dignity to say so ? ' 

She did not shrivel. Without deigning to look at me at all, she 
languidly lifted the coin and bit it! — to see if it was good. Then 



174 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 







she turned her back and placidly waddled to her former roost again, 

tossing the money into 
/^^t~ >^i*-- ./-v. an open till as she went 

along. She was victor 
to the last, you see. 

I have enlarged upon 
P the ways of this girl be- 
cause they are typical; 
her manners are the man- 
ners of a goodly number 
of the Baden-Baden 
shopkeepers. The shop- 
keeper there swindles 
you if he can, and insults 
you whether he succeeds 
testing the coin. in swindling you or not. 

The keepers of baths also 

take great and patient pains to insult you. The frowsy woman who 

sat at the desk in the lobby of 

the great Friederichsbad and 

sold bath tickets, not only in- 
sulted me twice every day, 

with rigid fidelity to her great 

trust, but she took trouble 

enough to cheat me out of a 

shilling, one day, to have fairly 

entitled her to ten. Baden- 
Baden's splendid gamblers are 

gone, only her microscopic 

knaves remain. 

An English gentleman who 

had been living there severa 

years said — 

' If you could disguise you 

nationality, you would not find 

any insolence here. These 

shopkeepers detest the English 

and despise the Americans; 




BEAUTY AT THE BATH. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 17C 

they are rude to both, more especially to ladies of your nationality 
and mine. If these go shopping without a gentleman or a man servant, 
they are tolerably sure to be subjected to petty insolences — insolences 
of manner and tone rather than word, though words that are hard to 
bear are not always wanting^ I know of an instance where a shop- 
keeper tossed a coin back to an American lady with the remark, snap- 
pishly uttered, " We don't take French money here." — And I know 
of a case where an English lady said to one of these shopkeepers, 
" Don't you think you ask too much for this article ? " and he replied 
with the question, " Do you think you are obliged to buy it ? " 
However, these people are not impolite to Russians or Germans. And 
as to rank, they worship that, for they have long been used to generate 
and nobles. If you wish to see to what abysses servility can descend, 
present yourself before a Baden-Baden shopkeeper in the character of 
a Russian prince.' 

It is an inane town, filled with sham, and petty fraud, and snobbery, 
but the baths are good. I spoke with many people, and they were all 
agreed in that. I had had twinges of rheumatism unceasingly during 
three years, but the last one departed after a fortnight's bathing there, 
and I have never had one since. I fully believe I left my rheumatism 
in Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden is welcome to it. It was little, but it 
was all I had to give. I would have preferred to leave something 
that was catching, but it was not in my power. 

There are several hot springs there, and during two thousand years 
they have poured forth a never-diminishing abundance of the healing 
water. This water is conducted in pipes to the numerous bath-houses, 
and is reduced to an endurable temperature by the addition of cold 
water. The new Friederichsbad is a very large and beautiful building, 
and in it one may have any sort of bath that has ever been invented, 
and with all the additions of herbs and drugs that his ailment may 
need or that the physician of the establishment may consider a useful 
thing to put into the water. You go there, enter the great door, get 
a bow graduated to your style and clothes from the gorgeous portier, 
and a bath- ticket and an insult from the frowsy woman for a quarter, 
she strikes a bell, and a serving-man conducts you down a long hall 
and shuts you into a commodious room which has a washstand r 
a mirror, a bootjack, and a sofa in it, and there you undress at your 
leisure. 



176 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



The room is divided by a great curtain. You draw this curtain 
aside, and find a large white marble bath-tub, with its rim sunk to 
the level of the floor, and with three white marble steps leading down 
into it. This tub is full of water, which is as clear as crystal, and is 
tempered to 28° Reaumur (about 95° Fahrenheit). Sunk into the floor, 
by the tub, is a covered copper box which contains some warm towels 
and a sheet. You look fully as white as an angel when you are stretched 
-out in that limpid bath. You remain in it ten minutes the first time, 
-and afterwards increase the duration from day to day, till you reach 
twenty-five or thirty minutes. There you stop. The appointments 
of the place are so luxurious, the benefit so marked, the price so 




IN THE BATH. 



moderate, and the insults so sure, that you very soon find yourself 
adoring the Friederichsbad and infesting it. 

We had a plain, simple, unpretenf? »g, good hotel in Baden-Baden — 
the Hotel de France— and alongsid my room I had a giggling, cack- 
ling, chattering family who always went to bed just two hours after 
me and always got up just two hours ahea jf me. But that is common 
in German hotels ; the people generally O o to bed long after eleven 
and get up long before eight. The partitions convey sound like a 
drumhead, and everybody knows it ; but no matter, a German family 
who are all kindness and consideration in the daytime make apparently 
no effort to moderate their noises for your benefit at night. They will 
sing, laugh, and talk loudly, and bang furniture around in the most 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



177 



pitiless way. If you knock on your wall appealingly, they will quiet 

down and discuss the matter softly amongst themselves for a moment 

then, like the mice, they fall to persecuting you again, and as vigorously 
as before. They keep cruelly late and early hours, for such noisy folk. 

Of course when one begins to find fault with foreign people's ways, 
he is very likely to get a reminder to look nearer home, before he 
gets far with it. I open my note-book to see if I can find some more 
information of a valuable nature about Baden-Baden, and the first 
thing I fall upon is this : 

Baden-Baden (no date). — Lot of vociferous Americans at breakfast 
this morning. Talking at everybody, while pretending to talk among 
themselves. On their first travels, manifestly. Showing off. The 
usual signs— airy, easy-going references to grand distances and foreign 
places. ' Well, good-bye, old fellow, if I don't run across you in Italy, 
you hunt me up in London before you sai 

The next item 
which I find in my 
note-book is this one : 

1 The fact that a 
band of 6,000 Indians 
are now murdering 
our frontiersmen at 
their impudent lei- 
sure, and that we are 
only able to send 1,200 
soldiers against them, 
is utilised here to dis- 
courage emigration to 
America. The com- 
mon people think the 
Indians are in New 
Jersey.' 

This is a new and 
peculiar argument 
against keeping our jeesey Indians. 

army down to a ridiculous figure in the matter of numbers. It is 
rather a striking one, too. I have not distorted the truth in saying 

N 




178 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

that the facts in the above item, about the army and the Indians, are 
made use of to discourage emigration to America. That the common 
people should be rather foggy in their geography, and foggy as to 
the location of the Indians, is matter for amusement, maybe, but not 
of surprise. 

There is an interesting old cemetery in Baden-Baden, and we 
spent several pleasant hours in wandering through it and spelling out 
the inscriptions on the aged tombstones. Apparently after a man has 
lain there a century or two, and has had a good many people buried 
on top of him, it is considered that his tombstone is not needed by 
him any longer. I judge so from the fact that hundreds of old grave- 
stones have been removed from the graves and placed against the inner 
walls of the cemetery. What artists they had in the old times ! They 
chiselled angels and cherubs and devils and skeletons on the tomb- 
stones in the most lavish and generous way — as to supply — but curiously 
grotesque and outlandish as to form. It is not always easy to tell 
which of the figures belong among the blest, and which of them among 
the opposite party. But there was an inscription, in French, on one of 
those old stones which was quaint and pretty, and was plainly not the 
work of any other than a poet. It was to this effect : — 

HERE 

REPOSES IN GOD, 

CAROLINE DE CLERY, 

A RELIGIEUSE OF ST. DENIS, 

AGED 83 YEARS AND BLIND. 

TIE LIGHT WAS RESTORED TO HER 

IN BADEN, THE 5TH OF JANUARY, 

1839. 

We made several excursions on foot to the neighbouring villages, 
over winding and beautiful roads, and through enchanting woodland 
scenery. The woods and roads were similar to those at Heidelberg, 
but not so bewitching. I suppose that roads and woods which are up 
to the Heidelberg mark are rare in the world. 

Once we wandered clear away to La Favorita Palace, which is 
several miles from Baden-Baden. The grounds about the palace were 
fine; the palaoe was a curiosity. It was built by a Margravine in 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 179 

1725, and remains as she left it at her death. TV r e wandered through 
a great many of its rooms, and they all had striking peculiarities of 
decoration. For instance, the walls of one room were pretty completely 
covered with small pictures of the Margravine in all conceivable varieties 
of fanciful costumes, some of them male. 

The walls of another room were covered with grotesquely and 
elaborately figured hand-wrought tapestry. The musty ancient beds 
remained in the chambers, and their quilts and curtains and canopies 
were decorated with curious hand- work, and the walls and ceilings 
frescoed with historical and mythological scenes in glaring colours. 
There was enough crazy and rotten rubbish in the building to make 
the true brick- a-bracker green with envy. A painting in the dining- 
hall verged upon the indelicate — but then the Margravine was herself 
a trifle indelicate. 

It is in every way a wildly and picturesquely decorated house, 
and brimful of interest as a reflection of the character and tastes of that 
rude bygone time. 

In the grounds, a few rods from the palace, stands the Margravine's 
•chapel, just as she left it — a coarse wooden structure, wholly barren 
•of ornament. It is said that the Margravine would give herself up to 
debauchery and exceedingly fast living for several months at a time, 
and then retire to this miserable wooden den and spend a few months 
in repenting and getting ready for another good time. She was a 
devoted Catholic, and was perhaps quite a model sort of a Christian as 
Christians went then, in high life. 

Tradition says she spent the last two years of her life in the strange 
•den I have been speaking of, after having indulged herself in one final, 
triumphant, and satisfying spree. She shut herself up there, without 
company, and without even a servant, and so abjured and forsook the 
world. In her little bit of a kitchen she did her own cooking ; she 
wore a hair shirt next the skin, and castigated herself with whips — these 
aids to grace are exhibited there yet. She prayed and told her beads, 
in another little room before a waxen Virgin niched in a little box 
against the wall ; she bedded herself like a slave. 

In another small room is an unpainted wooden table, and behind 
it sit half-life-size waxen figures of the Holy Family, made by the 
very worst artist that ever lived, perhaps, and clothed in gaudy, flimsy 

N2 



ISO A TRAMP ABROAD, 

drapery. 1 The Margravine used to bring her meals to this table and 
dine ivitJi the Holy Family. What an idea that was ! What a grisly 
spectacle it must have been ! Imagine it ! Those rigid, shock headed 
figures, with corpsy complexions and fishy glass eyes, occupying one 
side of l he table in the constrained attitudes and dead fixedness that 
distinguish all men that are born of wax, and this wrinkled, smouldering 
old fire-eater occupying the other side, mumbling her prayers and 




NOT PARTICULARLY SOCIABLE. 



munching her sausages in the ghostly stillness and shadowy indistinct- 
ness of a winter twilight. It makes one feel crawly even to think of it. 
In this sordid place, and clothed, bedded, and fed like a pauper, this 
strange princess lived and worshipped during two years, and in it she 
died. Two or three hundred years ago, this would have made the 
poor den holy ground ; and the church would have set up a miracle- 
factory there and made plenty of money out of it. The den could be 
moved into some portions of France and made a good property even now. 

1 The Saviour was represented as a lad of about fifteen years of age. This 
figure had lost one eye. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 181 



CHAPTER XXII. 

From Baden-Baden we made the customary trip into the Black Forest, 
We were on foot most of the time. One cannot describe those noble 
woods, nor the feeling with which they inspire him. A feature of the 
feeling, however, is a deep sense of contentment ; another feature of it 
is a buoyant, boyish gladness ; and a third and very conspicuous feature 
of it is one's sense of the remoteness of the work-day world and his 
entire emancipation from it and its affairs. 

Those woods stretch unbroken over a vast region ; and everywhere 
they are such dense woods, and so still, and so piney and fragrant. 
The stems of the trees are trim and straight, and in many places all 
the ground is hidden for miles under a thick cushion of moss of a vivid 
green colour, with not a decayed or ragged spot in its surface, and not 
a fallen leaf or twig to mar its immaculate tidiness. A rich cathedral 
gloom pervades the pillared aisles ; so the stray flecks of sunlight that 
strike a trunk here and a bough yonder are strongly accented, and 
when they strike the moss they fairly seem to burn. But the weirdest 
effect, and the most enchanting, is that produced by the diffused light 
of the low afternoon sun ; no single ray is able to pierce its way in, 
then, but the diffused light takes colour from moss and foliage, and 
pervades the place like a faint, green-tinted mist, the theatrical fire of 
fairyland. The suggestion of mystery and the supernatural which 
haunts the forest at all times is intensified by this unearthly glow. 

We found the Black Forest farmhouses and villages all that the 
Black Forest stories have pictured them. The first genuine specimen 
which we came upon was the mansion of a rich farmer and member of 
the Common Council of the parish or district. He was an important 
personage in the land, and so was his wife also, of course. His daughter 
was the ' catch ' of the region, and she may be already entering into 



182 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



immortality as the heroine of one of Auerbach's novels for all I know. 
We shall see, for if he puts her in I shall recognise her by her Black 
Forest clothes, and her burned complexion, her plump figure, her fat 
hands, her dull expression, her gentle spirit, her generous feet, her 
bonnetless head, and the plaited tails of hemp-coloured hair hanging 
down her back. 




BLACK FOREST GRANDEE. 

The house was big enough for an hotel ; it was a hundred feet long 
and fifty wide, and ten feet high, from ground to eaves; but from the 
eaves to the comb of the mighty roof was as much as forty feet, or 
maybe even more. This roof was of ancient mud-coloured straw 
thatch a foot thick, and was covered all over, except in a few trifling 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



183 



spots, with a thriving and luxurious growth of green vegetation, mainly 
moss. The mossless spots were places where repairs had been made 




GRANDEE S DAUGHTER. 



by the insertion of bright new masses of yellow straw. The eaves 
projected far down, like sheltering, hospitable wings. Across the gable 
that fronted the road, and about ten feet above the ground, ran a nar- 



184 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

row porch, with a wooden railing ; a row of small windows filled with 
very small panes looked upon the porch. Above were two or three 
other little windows, one clear up under the sharp apex of the roof. 
Before the ground-floor door was a huge pile of manure. The door of 
a second- story room on the side of the house was open, and occupied 
by the rear elevation of a cow. "Was this probably the drawing-room ? 
All of the front half of the house from the ground up seemed to be 
occupied by the people, the cows, and the chickens, and all the rear 
half by draught animals and hay. But the chief feature all around this 
house was the big heaps of manure. 

We became very familiar with the fertiliser in the Forest. We 
fell unconsciously into the habit of judging of a man's station in life by 
this outward and eloquent sign. Sometimes we said, l Here is a poor 
devil, this is manifest.' When we saw a stately accumulation, we said, 
1 Here is a banker.' When we encountered a country seat surrounded 
by an Alpine pomp of manure, we said, ' Doubtless a duke lives here.' 

The importance of this feature has not been properly magnified in 
the Black Forest stories. Manure is evidently the Black Forester's 
main treasure — his coin, his jewel, his pride, his Old Master, his 
keramics, his bric-a-brac, his darling, his title to public consideration, 
envy, veneration, and his first solicitude when he gets ready to make 
his will. The true Black Forest novel, if it is ever written, will be 
skeletoned somewhat in this way : — 

SKELETON FOR BLACK FOREST NOVEL. 

Rich old farmer, named Huss. Has inherited great wealth of 
manure, and by diligence has added to it. It is double-starred in 
' Baedeker.' l The Black Forest artist paints it — his masterpiece. The 
King comes to see it. Gretchen Huss, daV^hter and heiress. Paul 
Hoch, young neighbour, suitor for Gretchen's hand — ostensibly ; he 
really wants the manure. Hoch has a good many cart-loads of the 
Black Forest currency himself, and therefore is a good catch ; but he is 
sordid, mean, and without sentiment, whereas Gretchen is all senti- 
ment and poetry. Hans Schmidt, young neighbour, full of sentiment, 
full of poetry, loves Gretchen ; Gretchen loves him. But he has no 

1 When Baedeker's guide-books mention a thing and put two stars * * 
after it, it means ' well worth visiting.' — M. T. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



185 




RICH OLD HUSS. 



manure. Old Huss forbids him the house. His heart breaks, he goes 

away to die in the woods, far from the 
cruel world — for he says, bitterly, 
1 What is man, without manure ? ' 
[Interval of six months.] 
Paul Hoch comes to old Huss and 
says, 'I am at last as rich as you re- 
quired — come and view the pile.' Old 
Huss views it, and says, ' It is sufficient 
— take her and be happy' — meaning 
Gretchen. 

[Interval of two weeks.] 
Wedding party assembled in old 
Huss's drawing-room; Hoch placid and content, Gretchen weeping 
over her hard fate. Enter old Huss's head book-keeper. Huss says 
fiercely, l I gave you three weeks to find out why your books don't 
balance, and to prove that you are not a defaulter ; the time is up — 
find me the missing property or you 
go to prison as a thief.' Book- 
keeper: ' I have found it.' 'Where?' 
Book-keeper (sternly — tragically) : 
* In the bridegroom's pile ! — toehold 
the thief — see him blench and 
tremble ! ' [Sensation.] Paul 
Hoch : ' Lost, lost ! ' — falls over -—.r 
the cow in a swoon and is hand- V^ 
cuffed. Gretchen : ' Saved ! ' Falls ^/C/ 
over the calf in a swoon of joy, 
but is caught in the arms of Hans 
Schmidt, who springs in at that mo- 
ment. Old Huss: 'What, you 
here, varlet ? unhand the maid and 
quit the place.' Hans (still supporting the insensible girl) : ' Never 1 
Cruel old man, know that I come with claims which even you cannot 
despise.' 

Huss : ' What, you ? Name them.' 

Hans : ' Then listen. The world had forsaken me, I forsook the 




GRETCHEN. 



186 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 




PAUL HOCH. 



world. I wandered in the solitude of the forest, longing for death, but 

finding none. I fed upon roots, and in my bitterness I dug for the 

bitterest, loathing the sweeter kind. Digging, three days agone, I 
struck a manure mine ! — a Golconda, a 
limitless Bonanza of solid manure ! I can 
buy you all, and have mountain ranges 
of manure left ! Ha ha ! now thou smilest 
a smile ! ' [Immense sensation.] Exhibi- 
tion of specimens from the mine. Old 
Huss, enthusiastically : ' Wake her up, 
shake her up, noble young man, she is 
yours ! ' Wedding takes place on the spot ; 
book-keeper restored to his office and emo- 
luments ; Paul Hoch led off to gaol. The 
Bonanza King of the Black Forest lives to 
a good old age, blessed with the love of his 

wife and of his twenty-seven children, and the still sweeter envy of 

everybody around. 

We took our noon meal of fried trout one day at the Plow inn, in 

a very pretty village (Ottenhofen), and then went into the public 

room to rest and smoke. There we 

found nine or ten Black Forest grandees 

assembled around a table. They were 

the Common Council of the parish. 

They had gathered there at eight o'clock 

that morning to elect a new member, 

and they had now been drinking beer 

four hours at the new member's expense. 

They were men of fifty or sixty years 

of age, with grave, good-natured faces, 

and were all dressed in the costume 

made familiar to us by the Black Forest 

stories : broad, round-topped, black felt 

hats, with the brims curled up all 

around ; long red waistcoats with large 

coats w T ith the waists up between the 




HANS SCHMIDT. 



up 



metal buttons, black alpaca 
shoulders. There 



were no 



speeches, there was but little talk, there were no frivolities ; the Council 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



187 



filled themselves gradually, steadily, but surely, with beer, and con- 
ducted themselves with sedate decorum, as became men of position, men 
of influence, men of manure. 

We had a hot afternoon tramp up the valley, along the grassy bank 
of a rushing stream of clear water, past farmhouses, water-mills, and no 
end of wayside crucifixes, and saints, and Virgins. These crucifixes, 
etc., are set up in memory of departed friends by survivors, and are 
almost as frequent as telegraph poles are in other lands. 




ELECTING- A NEW MEMBER. 



We followed the carriage road, and had our usual luck ; we tra- 
velled under a beating sun, and always saw the shade leave the shady 
places before we could get to them. In all our wanderings we seldom 
managed to strike a piece of road at its time for being shady. We 
had a particularly hot time of it on that particular afternoon, and with 
no comfort but what we could get out of the fact that the peasants at 
work away up on the steep mountain sides above our heads were even 



1S8 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

worse off than we were. By-and-by it became impossible to endure 
the intolerable glare and heat any longer ; so we struck across the ravine 
and entered the deep cool twilight of the forest, to hunt for what the 
guide-book called the ' old road.' 

We found an old road, and it proved eventually to be the right 
one, though we followed it at the time with the conviction that it was 
the wrong one. If it was the wrong one there could be no use in 
hurrying, therefore Ave did not hurry, but sat down frequently on the 
soft moss, and enjoyed the restful quiet and shade of the forest soli- 
tudes. There had been distractions in the carriage road — school 
children, peasants, wagons, troops of pedestrianising students from all 
over Germany — but we had the old road all to ourselves. 

Now and then, while we rested, we watched the laborious ant at his 
work. I found nothing new in him — certainly nothing to change my 
opinion of him. It seems to me that in the matter of intellect the ant 
must be a strangely overrated bird. During many summers now I 
have watched him, when I ought to have been in better business, and 
I have not yet come across a living ant that seemed to have any more 
sense than a dead one. I refer to the ordinary ant, of course ; I have 
had no experience of those wonderful Swiss and African ones which 
vote, keep drilled armies, hold slaves, and dispute about religion. 
Those particular ants may be all that the naturalist paints them, but I 
am persuaded that the average ant is a sham. I admit his industry, of 
course ; he is the hardest-working creature in the world — when any- 
body is looking — but his leather-headedness is the point I make against 
him. He goes out foraging, he makes a capture, and then what does 
he do ? Go home ? No ; he goes anywhere but home. He doesn't 
know where home is. His home may be only three feet away ; no 
matter, he can't find it. He makes his capture, as I have said ; it is 
generally something which can be of no sort of use to himself or any- 
body else ; it is usually seven times bigger than it ought to be ; he 
hunts out the awkwardest place to take hold of it ; he lifts it bodily 
up in the air by main force, and starts — not towards home, but in 
the opposite direction ; not calmly and wisely, but with a frantic 
haste which is wasteful of his strength ; he fetches up against a pebble, 
and, instead of going around it, he climbs over it backwards, dragging 
his booty aftei him, tumbles down on the other side, jumps up in a 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



18$) 



passion, kicks the dust off his clothes, moistens his hands, grabs his pro- 
perty viciously, yanks it this way, then that, shoves it ahead of him a 







'UtK Tx 

***** 



~_\^ 



OVERCOMING OBSTACLES. 



moment, turns tail and lugs it after him another moment, gets madder 
and madder, then presently hoists it into the air and goes tearing away 
in an entirely new direction ; comes to a weed ; it never occurs to him 
to go around it. No ; he must climb it, and he does climb it, dragging 
his worthless property to the top — which is as bright a thing to do as 
it would be for me to carry a sack of flour from Heidelberg to Paris 
by way of Strasburg steeple. When he gets up there he finds that that 
is not the place ; takes a cursory glance at the scenery, and either 
climbs down again or tumbles down, and starts off once more — as 
usual, in a new direction. At the end of half an hour he fetches up 
within six inches of the place he started from, and lays his burden down. 
Meantime, he has been over all the ground for two yards around, and 
climbed all the weeds and pebbles he came across. Now he wipes the 
sweat from his brow, strokes his limbs, and then marches aimlessly 
off, in as violent a hurry as ever. He traverses a good deal of zig-zag 
country, and by-and-by stumbles on his same booty again. He does 
not remember to have ever seen it before ; he looks around to see 




-jtralM 



-^# v 



ife- 



FRIENDS. 



which is not the way home, grabs his bundle, and starts. He goes 
through the same adventures he had before ; finally stops to rest, and 



190 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

a friend comes along. Evidently the friend remarks that a last year's 
grasshopper leg is a very noble acquisition, and inquires where he got it. 
Evidently the proprietor does not remember exactly where he did get 
it, but thinks he got it ' around here somewhere.' Evidently the friend 
contracts to help him freight it home. Then, with a judgment pecu- 
liarly antic (pun not intentional), they take hold of opposite ends of 
that grasshopper leg and begin to tug with all their might in opposite 
directions. Presently they take a rest, and confer together. They 
decide that something is wrong, they can't make out what. Then they 
go at it again, just as before. Same result. Mutual recriminations 
follow. Evidently each accuses the other of being an obstructionist. 
They warm up, and the dispute ends in a fight. They lock them- 
selves together and chew each other's jaws for a while ; then they 
roll and tumble on the ground till one loses a horn or a leg and has to 
haul off for repairs. They make up and go to work again in the same 
old insane way, but the crippled ant is at a disadvantage ; tug as he 
may, the other one drags off the booty and him at the end of it. In- 
stead of giving up, he hangs on, and gets his shins bruised against 
every obstruction that comes in the way. By-and-by, when that grass- 
hopper leg has been dragged all over the same old ground once more, 
it is finally dumped at about the spot where it originally lay. The 
two perspiring ants inspect it thoughtfully and decide that dried grass- 
hopper legs are a poor sort of property after all, and then each starts 
off in a different direction to see if he can't find an old nail or some- 
thing else that is heavy enough to afford entertainment and at the same 
time valueless enough to make an ant want to own it. 

There in the Black Forest, on the mountain side, I saw an ant go 
through with such a performance as this with a dead spider of fully ten 
times his own weight. The spider was not quite dead, but too far 
gone to resist. He had a round body the size of a pea. The little 
ant— observing that I was noticing — turned him on his back, sunk his 
fangs into his throat, lifted him into the air, and started vigorously 
off with him, stumbling over little pebbles, stepping on the spider's legs 
and tripping himself up, dragging him backwards, shoving him bodily 
ahead, dragging him up stones six inches high instead of going around 
them, climbing weeds twenty times his own height and jumping from 
their summits — and finally leaving him in the middle of the road to 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



191 



be confiscated by any other fool of an ant that wanted him. I measured 
the ground which this ass traversed, and arrived at the conclusion 
that what he had accomplished inside of twenty minutes would consti- 
tute some such job as this — relatively speaking — for a man ; to wit : 
to strap two eight hundred pound horses together, carry them eighteen 
hundred feet, mainly over (not around) boulders averaging six feet 
high, and in the course of the journey climb up and jump from the top 
of one precipice like Niagara, and three steeples, each a hundred and 
twenty feet high ; and then put the horses down, in an exposed place, 
without anybody to watch them, and go off to indulge in some other 
idiotic miracle for vanity's sake. 







PROSPECTING. 



Science has recently discovered that the ant does not lay up any- 
thing for winter use. This will knock him out of literature to some 
extent. He does not work, except when people are looking, and only 
then when the observer has a green, naturalistic look, and seems to be 
taking notes. This amounts to deception, and will injure him for the 
Sunday schools. He has not judgment enough to know what is good 
to eat from what isn't. This amounts to ignorance, and will impair 
the world's respect for him. He cannot stroll around a stump and 
find his way home again. This amounts to idiocy, and once the 
damaging fact is established, thoughtful people will cease to look up 
to him, the sentimental will cease to fondle him. His vaunted industry 



192 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

is but a vanity and of no effect, since he never gets home with anything 
he starts with. This disposes of the last remnant of his reputation, 
and wholly destroys his main usefulness as a moral agent, since it will 
make the sluggard hesitate to go to him any more. It is strange 
beyond comprehension that so manifest a humbug as the ant has been 
able to fool so many nations and keep it up so many ages without 
being found oat. 

The ant is strong, but we saw another strong thing, where we had 
not suspected the presence of much muscular power before. A toad- 
stool — that vegetable which springs to full growth in a single night — 
had torn loose and lifted a matted mass of pine needles and dirt of 
twice its own bulk into the air, and supported it there, like a column 
supporting a shed. Ten thousand toadstools, with the right purchase, 
could lift a man, I suppose. But what good would it do ? 

All our afternoon's progress had been up hill. About five or half- 
past we reached the summit, and all of a sudden the dense curtain of 
the forest parted, and we looked down into a deep and beautiful 
gorge and out over a wide panorama of wooded mountains with their 
summits shining in the sun and their glade-furrowed sides dimmed with 
purple shade. The gorge under our feet — called AHerheiligen — afforded 
room in the grassy level at its head for a cosy and delightful human 
nest, shut away from the world and its botherations, and consequently 
the monks of the old times had not failed to spy it out ; and here were 
the brown and comely ruins of their church and convent to prove that 
priests had as fine an instinct seven hundred years ago in ferreting 
out the choicest nooks and corners in a land as priests have to-day. 

A big hotel crowds the ruins a little now, and drives a brisk trade 
with summer tourists. We descended into the gorge and had a supper 
which would have been very satisfactory if the trout had not been 
boiled. The Germans are pretty sure to boil a trout or anything else 
if left to their own devices. This is an argument of some value in 
support of the theory that they were the original colonists of the wild 
islands off the coast of Scotland. A schooner laden with oranges was 
wrecked upon one of those islands a few years ago, and the gentle 
savages rendered the captain such willing assistance that he gave them 
as many oranges as they wanted. Next dciy he asked them how they 
liked them. They shook their heads and said — 



A IB AMP ABROAD. 193 

1 Baked, they were tough ; and even boiled, they warn't things for a 
(hungry man to hanker after.' 

We went down the glen after supper. It is beautiful — a mixture 
of sylvan loveliness and craggy wildness. A limpid* torrent goes 
whistling down the glen, and toward the foot of it winds through a 
narrow cleft between lofty precipices and hurls itself over a succession 
of falls. After one passes the last of these he has a backward glimpse 
at the falls which is very pleasing — they rise in a seven-stepped stair- 
way of foamy and glittering cascades, and make a picture which is 
as charming as it is unusual. 



194 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

We were satisfied that we could walk to Oppenau in one day, now 
that we were in practice, so we set out next morning after breakfast 
determined to do it. It was all the way down hill, and we had the 
loveliest summer weather for it. So we set the pedometer, and then 
stretched away on an easy, regular stride, down through the cloven 
forest, drawing in the fragrant breath of the morning in deep refresh- 
ing draughts, and wishing we might never have anything to do for ever 
but walk to Oppenau, and keep on doing it, and then doing it over 
again. 

Now the true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walk- 
ing, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to- 
time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the 
brain stirred up and active ; the scenery and the woodsy smells are 
good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm 
and solace to eye and soul and sense ; but the supreme pleasure comes 
from the talk. It is no matter whether one talks wisdom or nonsense, 
the case is the same ; the bulk of the enjoyment lies in the wagging 
of the gladsome jaw and the flapping of the sympathetic ear. 

And what a motley variety of subjects a couple of people will 
casually rake over in the course of a day's tramp ! There being no 
constraint, a change of subject is always in order, and so a body is not 
likely to keep pegging at a single topic until it grows tiresome. We 
discussed everything we knew, during the first fifteen or twenty minutes, 
that morning, and then branched out into the glad, free boundless realm 
of the things we were not certain about. 

Harris said that if the best writer in the world once got the slovenly 
habit of doubling up his ' have's ' he could never get rid of it while 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



195 



he lived. That is to say, if a man gets the habit of saying, ' I should 
have liked to have known more about it,* instead of saying simply 
and sensibly, ' I should have liked to know more about it,' that man's 
disease is incurable. Harris said that this sort of lapse is to be found in 
every copy of every newspaper that has ever been printed in English, 
and in almost all of our books. He said he had observed it in Kirk- 
ham's grammar and in Macaulay. Harris believed that milk-teeth are 
commoner in men's mouths than those ' doubled-up have's.' l 

That changed the subject to dentistry. I said I believed the average 
man dreaded tooth-pulling more than amputation, and that he would 
yell quicker under the former operation than he would under the 




GENERAL HOWL. 

1 < I do not know that there have not been moments in the course of the 
present session when I should have been very glad to have accepted the pro- 
posal of my noble friend, and to have exchanged parts in some of our evenings 
of work.'— From a speech of the English Chancellor of the Exchequer, August 

1879. 

02 



196 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

latter. The philosopher Harris said that the average man would not 
yell in either case if he had an audience. Then he continued : — 

i When our brigade first went into camp on the Potomac we used 
to be brought up standing, occasionally, by an ear-splitting howl of 
anguish. That meant that a soldier was getting a tooth pulled in a 
tent. But the surgeons soon changed that ; they instituted open-air 
dentistry. There never was a howl afterwards — that is, from the man 
who was having the tooth pulled. At the daily dental hour there 
would always be about 500 soldiers gathered together in the neigh- 
bourhood of that dental chair waiting to see the performance — and 
help; and the moment the surgeon took a grip on the candidate's 
tooth, and began to lift, every one of those 500 rascals would clap his 
hand to his jaw and begin to hop around on one leg and howl with all 
the lungs he had ! It was enough to raise your hair to hear that varie- 
gated and enormous unanimous caterwaul burst out ! With so big and 
so derisive an audience as that, a sufferer wouldn't emit a sound though 
you pulled his head oft". The surgeons said that pretty often a patient 
was compelled to laugh, in the midst of his pangs, but that they had 
never caught one crying out, after the open-air exhibition was insti- 
tuted.' 

Dental surgeons suggested doctors, doctors suggested death, death 
suggested skeletons — and so, by a logical process, the conversation 
melted out of one of these subjects and into the next, until the topic 
of skeletons raised up Nicodemus Dodge out of the deep grave in my 
memory where he had lain buried and forgotten for twenty-five years. 
When I was a boy in a printing office in Missouri, a loose-jointed, long- 
legged, tow-headed, jeans-clad, countrified cub of about sixteen lounged 
in one day, and without removing his hands from the depths of his 
trousers pockets, or taking off his faded ruin of a slouch hat, whose 
broken brim hung limp and ragged about his eyes and ears like a bug- 
eaten cabbage leaf, stared indifferently around, then leaned his hip 
against the editor's table, crossed his mighty brogans, aimed at a distant 
fly from a crevice in his upper teeth, laid him low, and said with 
composure — 

' Whar's the boss ? ' 

' I am the boss,' said the editor, following this curious bit of 
architecture wonderingly along up to its clock-face with his eye. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



19? 



1 Don't want anybody fur to learn the business, 't aint likely ? ' 

1 Well, I don't know. Would you like to learn it ? ' 

' Pap's so po' he cain't run rne no mo', so want to git a show somers 
if I kin, 'tain't no diffunce what — I'm strong and hearty, and I don't 
turn my back on no kind of work, hard nur soft.' 

' Do you think you would like to learn the printing business ? ' 

' Well, I don't re'ly k'yer a durn what I do learn, so's I git a chance 
fur to make my way. I'd 
jist as soon learn print'n '*&% 
's anything.' 

* Can you read ? ' 

' Yes — niiddlinV 

1 Write ? ' 

i Well, I've seed people 
could lay over me thar.' 

1 Cipher ? ' 

' Not good enough to 
keep store, I don't reckon, 
but up as fur as twelve- 
times-twelve I ain't no 
slouch. 'Tother side of 
that is what gits me.' 

' Where is your 
home ? ' 

1 I'm f m old Shelby.' 

' What's your father's 
religious denomination ? ' 

1 Him ? 0, he's a blacksmith.' 

1 No, no — I don't mean his trade, 
tion?' 

' — I didn't understand you befo'. He's a Freemason.' 

1 No — no, you don't get my meaning yet. What I mean is, does 
he belong to any church ? ' 

1 Now you're talkin' ! Couldn't make out what you was a tryin' 
to get through yo' head no way. B'long to a church ! Why, boss, 
he's ben the pizenest kind of a Free-will Babtis' for foi ty year. They 
ain't no pizener ones 'n' what he is. Mighty good man, pap is. 




SEEKING A SITUATION. 



What's his religious denomina- 



198 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

Everybody says that. If they said any diffrunt they wouldn't say 
it whar i" wuz — not much they wouldn't.' 

* What is your own religion ? ' 

1 Well, boss, you've kind o' got me thar — and yit you hain't got 
me so mighty much, nuther. I think 't if a feller he'ps another 
feller when he's in trouble, and don't cuss, and don't do no mean things, 
nur noth'n' he ain' no business to do, and don't spell the Savior's name 
with a little g, he ain't runnin' no resks — he's about as saift as if he 
b'longed to a church.' 

' But suppose he did spell it with a little g — what then ? ' 

' Well, if he done it a-purpose, I reckon he wouldn't stand no chance 
— he oughtn't to have no chance, anyway, I'm most rotten certain 'bout 
that.' 

' What is your name ? ' 

' Nicodemus Dodge.' 

'I think maybe you'll do, Nicodemus. We'll give you a trial, 
anyway. 

' All right.' 

' When would you like to begin ? ' 

1 Now.' 

So within ten minutes after we had first glimpsed this nondescript 
he was one of us, and with his coat off and hard at it. 

Beyond that end of our establishment which was furthest from 
the street was a deserted garden, pathless, and thickly grown with 
the bloomy and villanous 'jimpson' weed and its common friend 
the stately sunflower. In the midst of this mournful spot was a 
decayed and aged little ' frame ' house, with but one room, one window, 
and no ceiling — it had been a smoke-house a generation before. Nico- 
demus was given this lonely and ghostly den as a bedchamber. 

The village smarties recognised a treasure in Nicodemus, right 
away — a butt to play jokes on. It was easy to see that he was incon- 
ceivably green and confiding. George Jones had the glory of perpe- 
trating the first joke on him ; he gave him a cigar with a fire-cracker in 
it and winked to the crowd to come ; the thing exploded presently 
and swept away the bulk of Nicodemus's eyebrows and eyelashes. He 
simply said — 

4 1 consider them kind of seeg'yars dangersome ' — and seemed to 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



199 



suspect nothing. The next evening Nicodemus waylaid George and 
poured a bucket of ice-water over him. 

One day, while Nicodemus was in swimming, Tom McElroy ' tied ' 
his clothes. Nicodemus made a bonfire of Tom's, by way of retali- 
ation. 

A third joke was played upon Nicodemus, a day or two later — he 
walked up the middle aisle of the village church, Sunday night, with 




STANDING GUARD. 

a staring handbill pinned between his shoulders. The joker spent 
the remainder of the night, after church, in the cellar of a deserted 
house, and Nicodemus sat on the cellar door till toward breakfast time 
to make sure that the prisoner remembered that if any noise was made 
some rough treatment would be the consequence. The cellar had two 



200 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



feet of stagnant water in it, and was bottomed with six inches of soft 
mud. 

But I wander from the point. It was the subject of skeletons that 
brought this boy back to my recollection. Before a very long time 
had elapsed, the village smarties began to feel an uncomfortable con- 
sciousness of not having made a very shining success out of their 
attempts on the simpleton from * old, Shelby.' Experimenters grew 
scarce and chary. Now the young doctor came to the rescue. There 
was delight and applause when he proposed to scare Nicodemus to 
death, and explained how he was going to do it. He had a noble new 
skeleton — the skeleton of the late and only local celebrity, Jimmy 
Finn, the village drunkard — a grisly piece of property which he had 
bought of Jimmy Finn himself, at auction, for fifty dollars, under 
great competition, when Jimmy lay very sick in the tan-yard a fort- 
night before his death. The fifty dollars had gone promptly for whisky,, 
and had considerably hurried up the change of ownership in the skeleton. 
The doctor would put Jimmy Finn's skeleton in Nicodemus's bed ! 

-5*^ ,.„ This was done — about half- 

s?^ "^j,,^ past ten in the evening. About 
'z&k ; vf Nicodemus's usual bedtime — 
I midnight — the village jokers 
came creeping stealthily through 
the jimpson weeds and sun- 
flowers toward the lonely frame 
den. They reached the window 
and peeped in. There sat the 
long-legged pauper, on his bed, 
in a very short shirt, and no- 
thing more ; he was dangling 
his legs contentedly back and 
forth, and wheezing the music 
of * Camptown Races ' out of a 
paper-overlaid comb which he 
was pressing against his mouth ; 
by him lay a new jewsharp, a 
new top, a solid india-rubber ball, a handful of painted marbles, five 
pounds of ' store ' candy, and a well-gnawed slab of gingerbread as big 




RESULT OF A JOKE. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



201 



and as thick as a volume of sheet music. He had sold the skele- 
ton to a travelling quack for three dollars, and was enjoying the 
result ! 

Just as we had finished talking about skeletons and were drift- 
ing into the subject of fossils, Harris and I heard a shout, and 
glanced up the steep hillside. We saw men and women standing 
away up there looking frightened, and there was a bulky object tumbling 
and floundering down the steep slope toward us. We got out of the 
way, and when the object landed in the road it proved to be a boy. 
He had tripped and fallen, and there was nothing for him to do but 
trust to luck and take what might come. 

When one starts to roll «, \%\^' ir \ 
down a place like that there %X \j\ w^P5^§^ Y^W^"' 
is no stopping till the bottom %S "^ \ \\>, \8f 



f\ 



is reached. Think of people 
farming on a slant which is 
so steep that the best you ^| 
can say of it — if you want " " 




DESCENDING A FARM. 



to be fastidiously accurate — is, that it is 
a little steeper than a ladder and not 
quite so steep as a mansard roof. But 
that is what they do. Some of the 
little farms on the hillside opposite Hei- 
delberg were stood up ' edgeways.' 
The boy was wonderfully jolted up, 
and his head was bleeding from cuts which it had got from small 
stones on the way. 

Harris and I gathered him up and set him on a stone, and by 
that time the men and women had scampered down and brought 
his cap. 

Men, women, and children flocked out from neighbouring cottages 
and joined the crowd ; the pale boy was petted, and stared at, and 
commiserated, and water was brought for him to drink, and bathe his 
bruises in. And such another clatter of tongues ! All who had 
seen the catastrophe were describing it at once, and each trying to 
talk louder than his neighbour ; and one youth of a superior genius ran 
a little way up the hill, called attention, tripped, fell, rolled dowa 



202 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

among us, and thus triumphantly showed exactly how the thing had 
been done. 

Harris and I were included in all the descriptions : how we were 
coming along ; how Hans Gross shouted ; how we looked up startled ; 
how we saw Peter coming like a cannon-shot; how judiciously we got 
out of the way, and let him come ; and with what presence of mind 
we picked him up and brushed him off, and set him on a rock when 
the performance was over. We were as much heroes as anybody else, 
except Peter, and were so recognised ; we were taken with Peter and 
the populace to Peter's mother's cottage, and there we ate bread and 
cheese, and drank milk and beer with everybody, and had a most 
sociable good time; and when we left we had a hand-shake all 
around, and were receiving and shouting back LeV wold's until a turn 
in the road separated us from our cordial and kindly new friends for 
ever. 

We accomplished our undertaking. At half-past eight in the 
evening we stepped into Oppenau, just eleven hours and a half out 
from Allerheiligen — 146 miles. This is the distance by pedometer ; 
the guide-book and the Imperial Ordnance maps make it only ten 
and a quarter — a surprising blunder, for these two authorities are 
usually singularly accurate in the matter of distances. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 203 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

That was a thoroughly satisfactory walk, and the only one we were 
ever to have which was all the way down hill. We took the train 
next morning and returned to Baden-Baden through fearful fogs of 
dust. Every seat was crowded, too, for it was Sunday, and conse- 
qu3ntly everybody was taking a ' pleasure ' excursion. Hot! the sky 
was an oven, and a sound one, too, with no cracks in it to let in any 
air. An odd time for a pleasure excursion, certainly. 

Sunday is the great day on the Continent — the free day, the happy 
day. One can break the Sabbath in a hundred ways without com- 
mitting any sin. 

We do not work on Sunday, because the commandment forbids 
it ; the Germans do not work on Sunday, because the commandment 
forbids it. We rest on Sunday, because the commandment requires it ; 
the Germans rest on Sunday, because the commandment requires it. 
But in the definition of the word ' rest ' lies all the difference. With 
us, its Sunday meaning is, stay in the house and keep still ; with the 
Germans its Sunday and week-day meaning seems to be the same — rest 
the tired part, and never mind the other parts of the frame; rest the 
tired part, and use the means best calculated to rest that particular 
part. Thus, if one's duties have kept him in the house all the week, 
it will rest him to be out on Sunday; if his duties have required him 
to read weighty and serious matter all the week, it will rest him to 
read light matter on Sunday; if his occupation has busied him with 
death and funerals all the week, it will rest him to go to the theatre 
Sunday night and put in two or three hours laughing at a comedy ; if 
he is tired with digging ditches or felling trees all the week, it will 
rest him to lie quiet in the house on Sunday ; if the hand, the arm, 
the brain, the tongue, or any other member is fatigued with inanition, 



204 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



it is not to be rested by adding a day's inanition ; but if a member 
is fatigued with exertion, inanition is the right rest for it. Such is 

the way in which the Germans 
seem to define the word l rest,' 
that is to say, they rest a mem- 
ber by recreating, recuperating, 
restoring its forces. But our 
definition is less broad. We all 
rest alike on Sunday, — by se- 
cluding ourselves and keeping 
still, whether that is the surest 
way to rest the most of us or 
not. The Germans make the 
actors, the preachers, etc., work 
on Sunday. We encourage the 
preachers, the editors, the prin- 
ters, etc., to work on Sunday, 
and imagine that none of the sin 
of it falls upon us ; but I do not 
know how we are going to get 
around the fact that if it is wrong 
for the printer to work at his trade on Sunday, it must be equally 
wrong for the preacher to work at his, since the commandment has 
made no exception in his favour. We buy Monday morning's paper 
and read it, and thus encourage Sunday printing. But I shall never do 
it again. 

The Germans remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, by abstain- 
ing from work, as commanded; we keep it holy by abstaining from 
work as commanded, and by also abstaining from play, which is not 
commanded. Perhaps we constructively break the command to rest, 
because the resting we do is in most cases only a name, and not a 
fact. 

These reasonings have sufficed, in a measure, to mend the rent 
in my conscience which I made by travelling to Baden-Baden that 
Sunday. We arrived in time to furbish up and get to the English 
church before services began. We arrived in considerable style, too, 
for the landlord had ordered the first carriage that could be found, 




KEEPING SUNDAY. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



205 



since there was no time to lose, and our coachman was so splendidly 
liveried that we were probably mistaken for a brace of stray dukes ; 
else why were we honoured with a pew all to ourselves, away up among 
the very elect at the left of the chancel ? That was my first thought. 
In the pew directly in front of us sat an elderly lady, plainly and 
cheaply dressed ; at her side sat a young lady with a very sweet face, 
and she also was quite simply dressed ; but around us and about us 
were clothes and jewels which it would do anybody's heart good to 
worship in. 



"■'■':" W%&, 




AN OBJECT OP SYMPATHY. 

I thought it was pretty manifest that the elderly lady was em- 
barrassed at finding herself in such a conspicuous place arrayed in 
such cheap apparel ; I began to feel sorry for her and troubled about 
her. She tried to seem very busy with her prayer-book and her 
responses, and unconscious that she was out of place, but I said to my- 
self, ' She is not succeeding, — there is a distressed tremulousness in her 
voice which betrays increasing embarrassment.' Presently the Saviour's 



206 J TRAMP ABROAD. 

name was mentioned, and in her flurry she lost her head completely, 
and rose and curtsied, instead of making a slight nod as everybody 
else did. The sympathetic blood surged to my temples and I turned 
and gave those fine birds what I intended to be a beseeching look, but 
my feelings got the better of me and changed it into a look which 
said, ' If any of you pets of fortune laugh at this poor soul, you will 
deserve to be flayed for it.' Things went from bad to worse, and I 
shortly found myself mentally taking the unfriended lady under my 
protection. My mind was wholly upon her, I forgot all about the 
sermon. Her embarrassment took stronger and stronger hold upon 
her ; she got to snapping the lid of her smelling bottle, — it made a 
loud sharp sound, but in her trouble she snapped and snapped away, 
unconscious of what she was doing. The last extremity was reached 
when the collection-plate began its rounds ; the moderate people threw 
in pennies, the nobles and the rich contributed silver, but she laid a 
tAventy-mark gold piece upon the book-rest before her with a sounding 
slap ! I said to myself, ' She has parted with all her little hoard to buy 
the consideration of these unpitying people, — it is a sorrowful spectacle.' 
I did not venture to look around this time ; but as the service closed 
I said to myself, { Let them laugh, it is their opportunity ; but at the 
door of this church they shall see her step into our fine carriage with 
us, and our gaudy coachman shall drive her home.' 

Then she rose, — and all the congregation stood while she walked 
down the aisle. She was the Empress of Germany ! 

No, she had not been so much embarrassed as I had supposed. 
My imagination had got started on the wrong scent, and that is always 
hopeless; one is sure, then, to go straight on misinterpreting everything, 
clear through to the end. The young lady with her Imperial Majesty 
was a maid of honour, — and I had been taking her for one of her 
boarders, all the time. 

This is the only time I have ever had an Empress under my personal 
protection ; and, considering my inexperience, I wonder I got through 
with it so well. I should have been a little embarrassed myself if I 
had known earlier what sort of a contract I had on my hands. 

We found that the Empress had been in Baden-Baden several days. 
It is said that she never attends any but the English form of church 
service. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 207 

I lay a-bed and read and rested from my journey's fatigues the 
remainder of that Sunday, but I sent my agent to represent me at the 
afternoon service, for I never allow anything to interfere with my habit 
of attending church twice every Sunday. 

There was a vast crowd in the public grounds that night to hear 
the band play the ' Fremersberg.' This piece tells one of the old 
legends of the region : how a great noble of the Middle Ages got lost 
in the mountains, and wandered about with his dogs in a violent storm, 
until at last the faint tones of a monastery bell, calling the monks to 
a midnight service, caught his ear, and he followed the direction the 
sounds came from and was saved. A beautiful air ran through the 
music, without ceasing ; sometimes loud and strong, sometimes so soft 
that it could hardly be distinguished, — but it was always there ; it 
swung grandly along through the shrill whistling of the storm-wind, 
the rattling patter of the rain, and the boom and crash of the thunder ; 
it wound soft and low through the lesser sounds, the distant ones, 
such as the throbbing of the convent bell, the melodious winding of 
the hunter's horn, the distressed baying of his dogs, and the solemn 
chanting of the monks; it rose again, with a jubilant ring, and mingled 
itself with the country songs and dances of the peasants assembled in 
the convent hall to cheer up the rescued huntsman while he ate his 
supper. The instruments imitated all these sounds with a marvellous 
exactness. More than one man started to raise hi3 umbrella when the 
storm burst forth and the sheets of mimic rain came driving by ; it 
was hardly possible to keep from putting your hand to your hat when 
the fierce wind began to rage and shriek ; and it was not possible to 
refrain from starting when those sudden and charmingly real thunder- 
crashes were let loose. 

I suppose the Fremersberg is very low-grade music ; I know, indeed, 
that it must be low-grade music, because it so delighted me, warmed 
me, moved me, stirred me, uplifted me, enraptured me, that I was full 
of cry all the time, and mad with enthusiasm. My soul had never had 
such a scouring out since I was born. The solemn and majestic 
chanting of the monks was not done by instruments, but by men's 
voices ; and it rose and fell, and rose again in that rich confusion of 
warring sounds, and pulsing bells, and the stately swing of that ever- 
present enchanting air, and it seemed to me that nothing but the very 



208 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



lowest of low-grade music could be so divinely beautiful. The great 
crowd which the Fremersberg had called out was another evidence that 
it was low-grade music ; for only the few are educated up to a point 
where high-grade music gives pleasure. I have never heard enough 




A NON-CLASSICAL STYLE. 

classic music to be able to enjoy it. I dislike the opera because I want 
to love it and can't. 

I suppose there are two kinds of music, — one kind which one 
feels, just as an oyster might, and another sort which requires a higher 
faculty, a faculty which must be assisted and developed by teaching. 
Yet if base music gives certain of us wings, why should we want any 
other ? But Ave do. We want it because the higher and better like it. 
But we want it without giving it the necessary time and trouble ; so 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 209 

we climb into that upper tier, that dress circle, by a lie ; we pretend 
we like it. I know several of that sort of people, — and I propose to 
be one of them myself when I get home with my fine European edu- 
cation. 

And then there is painting. What a red rag is to a bull, Turner's 
1 Slave Ship ' was to me before I studied Art. Mr. Ruskin is educated 
in art up to a point where that picture throws him into as mad an 
ecstasy of pleasure as it used to throw me into one of rage, last year, 
when I was ignorant. His cultivation enables him — and me, now — to 
see water in that glaring yellow mud, and natural effects in those lurid 
explosions of mixed smoke and flame, and crimson sunset glories ; it 
reconciles him, — and me, now, — to the floating of iron cable-chains and 
other unfloatable things ; it reconciles us to fishes swimming around 
on top of the mud, — I mean the water. The most of the picture is 
a manifest impossibility, — that is to say, a lie; and only rigid cultiva- 
tion can enable a man to find truth in a lie. But it enabled Mr. Ruskin 
to do it, and it has enabled me to do it, and I am thankful for it. A 
Boston newspaper reporter went and took a look at the Slave Ship 
floundering about in that fierce conflagration of reds and yellows, and 
said it reminded him of a tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a platter of 
tomatoes. In my then uneducated state, that went home to my non- 
cultivation, and I thought here is a man with an unobstructed eye. 
Mr. Ruskin would have said : This person is an ass. That is what I 
would say, now. 1 

However, our business in Baden-Baden this time was to join our 
courier. I had thought it best to hire one, as we should be in Italy 
by-and-by, and we did not know that language. Neither did he. 
We found him at the hotel, ready to take charge of us. I asked him 
if he was ' all fixed.' He said he was. That was very true. He had 
a trunk, two small satchels, and an umbrella. I was to pay him 55 
dollars a month and railway fares. On the Continent the railway fare 

1 Months after this was written, I happened into the National Gallery 
in London, and soon became so fascinated with the Turner pictures that 
I could hardly get away from the place. I went there often, afterwards, 
meaning to see the rest of the gallery, but the Turner spell was too strong ; 
it could not be shaken off. However, the Turners which attracted me most 
did not remind me of the Slave Ship. 

P 



210 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

on a trunk is about the same as it is on a man. Couriers do not have 
to pay any board and lodging. This seems a great saving to the tourist — 
at first. It does not occur to the tourist that somebody pays that 
man's board and lodging. It occurs to him by-and-by, however^ in 
one of his lucid moments. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



211 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Next morning we left in the train for Switzerland, and reached 
Lucerne about ten o'clock at night. The first discovery I made was 










THADJTIOXAL CHAMOIS. 



that the beauty of the lake had not been exaggerated. Within a 
day or two I made another discovery. This was, that the lauded 

p2 



212 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



chamois is not a wild goat ; that it is not a horned animal ; that it 
is not shy ; that it does not avoid human society ; and that there is no 
peril in hunting it. The chamois is a black or brown creature no 
bigger than a mustard seed ; you do not have to go after it, it comes 
after you ; it arrives in vast herds and skips and scampers all over 
your body, inside your clothes; thus it is not shy, but extremely 
sociable ; it is not afraid of man, on the contrary, it will attack him ; 
its bite is not dangerous, but neither is it pleasant ; its activity has not 
been overstated, — if you try to put your finger on it, it will skip a 
thousand times its own length at one jump, and no eye is sharp 
enough to see where it lights. A great deal of romantic nonsense 
has been written about the Swiss chamois and the perils of hunting 
it, whereas the truth is that even women and children hunt it, and 
fearlessly ; indeed, everybody hunts it ; the hunting is going on all the 
time, day and night, in bed and out of it. It is poetic foolishness 
to hunt it with a gun ; very few people do that ; there is not one 
man in a million who can hit it with a gun. It is much easier to 




HUNTING CHAMOIS — THE TRUE WAY. 

catch it than it is to shoot it, and only the experienced chamois 
hunter can do either. Another common piece of exaggeration is 
that about the ' scarcity ' of the chamois. It is the reverse of scarce. 
Droves of 100,000,000 chamois are not unusual in the Swiss hotels. 
Indeed, they are so numerous as to be a great pest. The romancers 
always dress up the chamois hunter in a fanciful and picturesque 




HUNTING CHAMOIS (AS REPORTED). 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 215 

costume, whereas the best way to hunt this game is to do it without 
any costume at all. The article of commerce called chamois skin is 
another fraud ; nobody could skin a chamois, it is too small. The 
creature is a humbug in every way, and everything which has been 
written about it is sentimental exaggeration. It was no pleasure to 
me to find the chamois out, for he had been one of my pet illusions ; 
all my life it had been my dream to see him in his native wilds 
some day, and engage in the adventurous sport of chasing him from 
cliff to cliff. It is no pleasure to me to expose him now, and destroy 
the reader's delight in him and respect for him ; but still it must be 
■done, for when an honest writer discovers an imposition it is his 
simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down from its place of honour, 
do matter who suffers by it: any ether course would render him 
unworthy of the public confidence. 

Lucerne is a charming place. It begins at the water's edge, with 
a fringe of hotels, and scrambles up and spreads itself over two or 
three sharp hills in a crowded, disorderly, but picturesque way, offering 
to the eye a heaped-up confusion of red roofs, quaint gables, dormer 
windows, toothpick steeples, with here and there a bit of ancient 
embattled wall bending itself over the ridges, worm-fashion, and here 
and there an old square tower of heavy masonry. And also here and 
there a town clock with only one hand — a hand which stretches straight 
across the dial and has no joint in it; such a clock helps out the 
picture, but you cannot tell the time of day by it. Between the 
curving line of hotels and the lake is a broad avenue with lamps and 
a double rank of low shade trees. The lake front is walled with 
masonry like a pier, and has a railing to keep people from walking 
overboard. All day long the vehicles dash along the avenue, and 
nurses, children, and tourists sit in the shade of the trees, or lean on 
the railing and watch the schools of fishes darting about in the clear 
water or gaze out over the lake at the stately border of snow-hooded 
mountain peaks. Little pleasure-steamers, black with people, arc 
coming and going all the time ; and everywhere one sees young girls 
and young men paddling about in fanciful row-boats, or skimming 
along by the help of sails when there is any wind. The front rooms 
of the hotels have little railed balconies, where one may take his 
private luncheon in calm cool comfort and look down upon this busy 



216 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



and pretty scene and enjoy it without having to do any of the work 
connected with it. 

Most of the people, both male and female, are in walking costume, 
and carry alpenstocks. Evidently it is not considered safe to go about 
in Switzerland, even in town, without an alpenstock. If the tourist 
forgets, and comes down to breakfast without his alpenstock, he goes 
back and gets it, and stands it up in a corner. When his touring in 
Switzerland is finished, he does not throw that broomstick away, but 
lugs it home with him, to the far corners of the earth, although this 
costs him more trouble and bother than a baby or a courier could. 
You see, the alpenstock is his trophy ; his name is burned upon it ; 

and if he has climbed 
a hill, or jumped a 
brook, or traversed a 
brickyard with it, he 
has the names of those 
places burned upon it, 
too. Thus it is his 
regimental flag, so to 
speak, and bears the 
record of his achieve- 
ments. It is worth 
three francs when he 
buys it, but a bonanza 
could not purchase it 
after his great deeds 
have been inscribed 
upon it. There are 
artisans all about 
Switzerland whose trade 
it is to burn these things 
upon the alpenstock of 
the tourist. And ob- 
serve, a man is respected in Switzerland according to his alpenstock. 
I found I could get no attention there while I carried an unbranded 
one. However, branding is not expensive, so I soon remedied that. 




MAUivLKG ALPENSTOCKS. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



217 



The effect upon the next detachment of tourists was very marked. 
I felt repaid for my trouble. — 

Half of the summer horde in Switzerland is made up of English 
people ; the other half is made up of many nationalities, the Germans 
leading and the Americans coming next. The Americans were not as 
numerous as I had expected they would be. 

The 7.30 table d'hote at the great Schweitzerhof furnished a mighty 
array and variety of nationalities, but it offered a better opportunity 
to observe costumes than people, for the multitude sat at immensely 
long tables, and therefore the faces were mainly seen in perspective ; 
but the breakfasts were served at small round tables, and then if 
one had the fortune to get a table in the midst of the assemblage he 
could have as many faces to study as he could desire. We used to try 
to guess out the nationalities, and generally succeeded tolerably well. 
Sometimes we tried to guess people's names, but that was a failure ; 
that is a thing which probably re- 
quires a good deal of practice. We 
presently dropped it and gave our 
efforts to less difficult particulars. One 
morning I said — 

* There is an American party.' 

Harris said — 

1 Yes, but name the State.' 

I named one State, Harris named 
another. We agreed upon one thing, 
however, that the young girl with the 
party was very beautiful, and v 
tastefully dressed. But we disagreed 
as to her age. I said she was eighteen, 
Harris said she was twenty. The 
dispute between us waxed warm and I finally said, with a pretence 
of being in earnest — 

1 Well, there is one way to settle the matter — I will go and ask her.' 

Harris said, sarcastically, ' Certainly, that is the thing to do. All 
you need to do is to use the common formula over here : go and say y 
" I'm an American ! " Of course she will be glad to see you.' 




IS SHE EIGHTEEN OR TWENTY ? 



218 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Then lie hinted that perhaps there was no great danger of my 
venturing to speak to her. 

I said, ' I was only talking — I didn't intend to approach her, but I 
see you do not know what an intrepid person I am. I am not afraid 
of any woman that walks. I will go and speak to this young girl.' 

The thing I had in my mind was not difficult. I meant to address 
her in the most respectful way and ask her to pardon me if her strong 




'i exew i wasn't mistaken.' 



resemblance to a former acquaintance of mine was deceiving me; ami 
when she should reply that the name I mentioned was not the name 
she bore, I meant to beg pardon again, most respectfully, and retire. 
There would be no harm done. I walked to her table, bowed to the 
gentleman, then turned to her, and was about to begin my little speech 
when she exclaimed — 

1 1 knew 1 wasn't mistaken — I told John it was you ! John said 
it probably wasn't, but I knew I was right. I said you would 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 219 

recognize me presently and come over ; and I'm glad you did, for I 
shouldn't have felt much nattered if you had gone out of this room 
without recognizing me. Sit down, sit down — how odd it is — you 
are the last person I was ever expecting to see again.' 

This was a stupefying surprise. It took my wits clear away for an 
instant. However, we shook hands cordially all round, and I sat 
down. But truly this was the tightest place I ever was in. I 
seemed to vaguely remember the girl's face now, but I had no idea 
where I had seen it before, or what name belonged with it. I 
immediately tried to get up a diversion about Swiss scenery, to keep 
her from launching into topics that might betray that I did not know 
her, but it was of no use, she went right along upon matters which 
interested her more. 

1 O dear, what a night that was, when the sea washed the forward 
boats away, — do you remember it ? ' 

* O, don't I ! ' said I, — but I didn't. I wished the sea had washed 
the rudder and the smoke-stack and the captain away, — then I could 
have located this questioner. 

' And don't you remember how frightened poor Mary was, and 
how she cried ? ' 

4 Indeed I do ! ' said I. ' Dear me, how it all comes back ! * 

I fervently wished it would come back, — but my memory was a 
blank. The wise way would have been to frankly own up ; but I 
could not bring myself to do that, after the young girl had praised 
me so for recognizing her ; so I went on, deeper and deeper into the 
mire, hoping for a chance clue, but never getting one. The Unre- 
cognizable continued, with vivacity, — 

' Do you know, George married Mary, after all ? • 

1 Why, no ! Did he ? ' 

' Indeed he did. He said he did not believe she was half as 
much to blame as her father was, and I thought he was right. Didn't 
you?' 

i Of course he was. It was a perfectly plain case. I always said 
so.' 

1 Why, no you didn't ! — at least that summer.' 

' O, no, not that summer. No, you are perfectly right about 
that. It was the ibllow ; npf '"'■inter that I said it.' 



220 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

' Well, as it turned out, Mary was not in the least to blame, — it 
was all her father's fault, — at least his and old Darley's.' 

It was necessary to say something, — so I said — 

' I always regarded Darley as a troublesome old thinj?.' 

4 So he was, but then they always had a great affection for him, 
although he had so many eccentricities. You remember that when 
the weather was the least cold, he would try to come into the house.' 

I was rather afraid to proceed. Evidently Darley was not a man, 
— he must be some other kind of animal, — possibly a dog, maybe an 
elephant. However, tails are common to all animals, so I ventured to 
say,— 

' And what a tail he had ! ' 

1 One ! He had a thousand ! ' 

This was bewildering. I did not quite know what to say, so I 
only said, — 

' Yes, he was rather well fixed in the matter of tails.' 

* For a negro, and a crazy one at that, I should say he was,' said 
she. 

It was getting pretty sultry for me. I said to myself, c Is it possible 
she is going to stop there, and wait for me to speak ? If she does,, 
the conversation is blocked. A negro with a thousand tails is a topic 
which a person cannot talk upon fluently and instructively without more 

or less preparation. As to diving rashly into such a vast subject ' 

But here, to my gratitude, she interrupted my thought by saying — 
' Yes, when it came to tales of his crazy woes, there was simply 
no end to them if anybody would listen. His own quarters were 
comfortable enough, but when the weather was cold, the family were 
sure to have his company, — nothing could keep him out of the 
house. But they always bore it kindly because he had saved Tom's 
life, years before. You remember Tom ? ' 
' 0, perfectly. Fine fellow he was, too.' 

1 Yes, he was. And what a pretty little thing his child was ! ' 
' You may well say that. I never saw a prettier child.' 

* I used to delight to pet it and dandle it and play with it.' 

* So did I.' 

* You named it. What was that name? I can't call it to mind.' 
It appeared to me that the ice was getting pretty thin, here. I 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 221 

would have given something to know what the child's sex was. How- 
ever, I had the good luck to think of a name that would fit either sex, 
— so I brought it out, — 

' I named it Frances.' 

' From a relative, I suppose ? But you named the one that died, 
too, — one that I never saw. What did you call that one ? ' 

I was out of neutral names, but as the child was dead and she 
had never seen it, I thought I might risk a name for it and trust to 
luck. Therefore I said — 

I I called that one Thomas Henry.' 
She said, musingly, — 

* That is very singular . . . very singular.' 

I sat still and let the cold sweat run down. I was in a good deal 
of trouble, but I believed I could worry through if she wouldn't 
ask me to name any more children. I wondered where the lightning 
was going to strike next. She was still ruminating over that last child's 
title, but presently she said, — 

i I have always been sorry you were away at the time, — I would 
have had you name my child.' 

' Your child ! Are you married ? ' 

I I have been married thirteen years.' 
1 Christened, you mean.' 

1 No, married. The youth by your side is my son.' 

1 It seems incredible, — even impossible. 1 do not mean any harm 
by it, but would you mind telling me if you are any over eighteen ? 
— that is to say, will you tell me how old you are ? ' 

' I was just nineteen the day of the storm we were talking about. 
That was my birthday.' 

That did not help matters much, as I did not know the date of 
the storm. I tried to think of some non-committal thing to say, to 
keep up my end of the talk and render my poverty in the matter of 
reminiscences as little noticeable as possible, but I seemed to be about 
out of non-committal things. I was about to say, * You haven't 
changed a bit since then,' — but that was risky. I thought of saying 
1 You have improved ever so much since then,' — but that wouldn't 
answer, of course. I was about to try a shy at the weather, for a 
saving change, when the girl slipped in ahead of me and snid, — 



222 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

1 How I have enjoyed this talk over those happy old times, — haven't 
you?' 

* I never have spent such a half hour in all my life before ! ' said I, 
with emotion; and I could have added, with a near approach to 
truth, ' and I would rather be scalped than spend another one like 
it.' I was holily grateful to be through with the ordeal, and was 
about to make my good-byes and get out, when the girl said — 

1 But there is one thing that is ever so puzzling to me.' 

* Why, what is that ? ' 

1 That dead child's name. What did you say it was ? ' 

Here was another balmy place to be in : I had forgotten the child's 
name; I hadn't imagined it would be needed again. However, I 
had to pretend to know, anyway, so I said — 

' Joseph William.' 

The youth at my side corrected me, and said — 

1 No, — Thomas Henry.' 

I thanked him, — in words, — and said, with trepidation, — 

' O yes, — I was thinking of another child that I named, — I have 
named a great many, and I get them confused, — this one was named 
Henry Thompson ' 

' Thomas Henry/ calmly interposed the boy. 

I thanked him again, — strictly in words, — and stammered out — 

1 Thomas Henry, — yes, Thomas Henry was the poor child's name. 
I named him for Thomas, — er, — Thomas Carlyle, the great author, 
you know, — and Henry — er, — er, Henry VIII. The parents were 
very grateful to have a child named Thomas Henry.' 

' That makes it more singular than ever,' murmured my beautiful 
friend. 

' Does it ? Why ? ' 

* Because when the parents speak of that child now, they always 
call it Susan Amelia.' 

That spiked my gun. I could not say anything. I was entirely 
out of verbal obliquities ; to go further would be to lie, and that I 
would not do ; so I simply sat still and suffered — sat mutely and 
resignedly there, and sizzled — for I was being slowly fried to death in 
my own blushes. Presently the enemy laughed a happy laugh and 
said, — 



A TRAMP ABROAD, 223 

' I have enjoyed this talk over old times, but you have not. I 
saw very soon that you were only pretending to know me, and so as I 
had wasted a compliment on you in the beginning, I made up my mind 
to punish you. And I have succeeded pretty well. I was glad to see 
that you knew George and Tom and Darley, for I had never heard 
of them before, and therefore could not be sure that you had ; and I was 
glad to learn the names of those imaginary children, too. One can 
get quite a fund of information out of you if one goes at it cleverly. 
Mary and the storm, and the sweeping away of the forward boats, 
were facts — all the rest was fiction. Mary was my sister, her full 
name was Mary . Now do you remember me ? ' 

\ Yes,' I said, ' I do remember you now ; and you are as hard- 
hearted as you were thirteen years ago in that ship, else you wouldn't 
have punished me so. You haven't changed your nature nor your 
person, in any way at all ; you look just as young as you did then, 
you are just as beautiful as you were then, and you have transmitted 
a deal of your comeliness to this fine boy. There, — if that speech 
moves you any, let's fly the flag of truce, with the understanding 
that I am conquered and confess it' 

All of which was agreed to and accomplished, on the spot. When 
I went back to Harris, I said — ■ 

* Now you see what a person with talent and address can do.' 

1 Excuse me, I see what a person of colossal ignorance and 
simplicity can do. The idea of your going and intruding on a party 
of strangers, that way, and talking for half an hour; why, I never 
heard of a man in his right mind doing such a thing before. What 
did you say to them ? ' 

' I never said any harm. I merely asked the girl what her name 
was.' 

'I don't doubt it. Upon my word I don't. I think you were 
capable of it. It was stupid in me to let you go over there, and make 
such an exhibition of yourself. But you know I couldn't really 
believe you would do such an inexcusable thing. What will those 
people think of us ! But how did you say it ? — I mean the manner of 
it. I hope you were not abrupt.' 

' No, I was careful about that. I said, " My friend and I would 
like to know what your name is, if you don't mind." ' 



224 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



1 No, that was not abrupt. There is a polish about it that does 
you infinite credit. And I am glad you put me in ; that was a delicate 
attention which I appreciate at its full value. What did she do ? ' 
1 She didn't do anything in particular. She told me her name.' 
' Simply told you her name. Do you mean to say she did not 
show any surprise ? ' 

1 Well, now I come to think, she did show something ; may be it 
was surprise ; I hadn't thought of that, — I took it for gratification ' 

' O, undoubtedly you were right ; it must have been gratification ; 
it could not be otherwise than gratifying to be assaulted by a stranger 
with such a question as that. Then what did you do ? ' 
' I offered my hand, and the party gave me a shake.' 
' I saw it ! I did not believe my own eyes, at the time. Did the 
gentleman say anything about cutting your throat ? ' 

* No, they all seemed glad to see me, as far as I could judge.' 
1 And do you know, I believe they were. I think they said to 
themselves, " Doubtless this curiosity has got away from his keeper 
, — let us amuse ourselves with him." There is no other way of 

accounting for their 



facile docility. You 
sat down. Did they 
ask you to sit 
down ? ' 

1 No, they did 
not ask me, but I 
supposed they did 
not think of it.' 

' You have an 
unerring instinct. 
What else did you 




HARRIS ASTONISHED. 



do ? What did you talk about ? ' 

' Well, I asked the girl how old she was.' 

' Undoubtedly. Your delicacy is beyond praise. Go on, go on, — 
don't mind my apparent misery, — I always look so when I am steeped 
in a profound and reverent joy. Go on, she told you her age? ' 

' Yes, she told me her age, and all about her mother, and her grand- 
mother, and her other relations, and all about herself.' 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 225 

1 Did she volunteer these statistics ? ' 

' No, not exactly that. I asked the questions and she answered 
them.' 

' This is divine. Go on, — it is not possible that you forgot to 
inquire into her politics ? ' 

' No, I thought of that. She is a democrat, her nusband is a re- 
publican, and both of them are Baptists.' 

1 Her husband ? Is that child married ? ' 

' She is not a child. She is married, and that is her husband who is 
there with her.' 

' Has she any children ? ' 

' Yes, — seven and a half/ 

1 That is impossible.' 

' No, sli 3 has them. She told me herself.' 

' "Well, but seven and a half. How do you make out the half? 
Where does the half come in ? ' 

1 That is a child which she had by another husband, — not this 
one, but another one, — so it is a step-child, and they do not count it 
full measure.' 

1 Another husband ? Has she had another husband ? ' 

1 Yes, four. This one is number four.' 

' I do not believe a word of it. tt is impossible upon its face. Is 
that boy there her brother ? ' 

' No, that is her son. He is her youngest. He is not as old as he 
looks ; he is only eleven and a half.' 

' These things are all manifestly impossible. This is a wretched 
business. It is a plain case: they simply took your measure, and 
concluded to fill you up. They seem to have succeeded. I am glad I 
am not in the mess ; they may at least be charitable enough to think 
there ain't a pair of us. Are they going to stay here long ? ' 

1 No, they leave before noon.' 

' There is one man who is deeply grateful for that. How did you 
find out? You asked, I suppose?' 

* No, along at first I inquired into their plans in a general way, 
and they said they were going to be here a week, and make trips round 
about ; but toward the end of the interview, when I said you and I 
would tour around with them with pleasure, and offered to bring you 

Q 



226 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



over and introduce you, they hesitated a little, and asked i£ you were 
from the same establishment that I was. I said you were, and then 
they said they had changed their mind, and considered it necessary to 
start at once and visit a sick relative in Siberia.' 

I Ah me, you struck the summit ! You struck the loftiest altitude 
of stupidity that human effort has ever reached. You shall have a 
monument of jackass's skulls as high as the Strasburg spire if you die 
before I do. They wanted to know if I was from the same " establish- 
ment " that you hail from, did they ? What did they mean by 
" establishment ? " ' 

I I don't know ; it never occurred to me to ask.' 

'Well, I know. They meant an asylum — an idiot asylum, do 
you understand ? So they do think there's a pair of us, after all. Now, 
what do you think of yourself ? ' 

' Well I don't know. I didn't know I was doing any harm ; I 
didn't mean to do any harm. They were very nice people, and they 
seemed to like me.' 

Harris made some rude remarks and left for his bedroom, — to break 
some furniture, he said. He was a singularly irascible man ; any 
little thing would disturb his temper. 

I had been well scorched by the young woman, but no matter, I took 
it out of Harris. One should always ' get even ' in some way, else the 
sore place will go on hurting. 




DESTRUCTION. 



A TRAMP ABROAD, 227 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Hofkirche is celebrated for its organ concerts. All summer long 
the tourists flock to that church about six o'clock in the evening, and 
pay their franc, and listen to the noise. They don't stay to hear all of 
it, but get up and tramp out over the sounding stone floor, meeting late 
•comers who tramp in in a sounding and vigorous way. This tramping 
back and forth is kept up nearly all the time, and is accented by the 
continuous slamming of the door, and the coughing and barking and 
sneezing of the crowd. Meantime, the big organ is booming and 
crashing and thundering away, doing its best to prove that it is the 
biggest and loudest organ in Europe, and that a tight little box of a 
church is the most favourable place to average and appreciate its powers 
in. It is true there were some soft and merciful passages occasionally, 
but the tramp-tramp of the tourists only allowed one to get fitful 
glimpses of them, so to speak. Then right away the organist would 
let go another avalanche. 

The commerce of Lucerne consists mainly in gimcrackery of the 
souvenir sort ; the shops are packed with Alpine crystals, photographs 
of scenery, and wooden and ivory carvings. I will not conceal the 
fact that miniature figures of the Lion of Lucerne are to be had in 
them. Millions of them. But they are libels upon him, every one of 
them. There is a subtle something about the majestic pathos of the 
original which the copyist cannot get. Even the sun fails to get it ; 
both the photographer and the carver give you a dying lion, and that 
is all. The shape is right, the attitude is right, the proportions are 
right, but that indescribable something which makes the Lion of 
Lucerne the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world, is 
wanting. 

The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff — ■ 

02 



228 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



for he is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal, 
his attitude is noble. His head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking 
in his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France. Vines 
hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear stream trickles 
from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in the smooth 
surface of the pond the Lion is mirrored, among the water lilies. 

Around about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered, 
reposeful, woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion — 




LION OF LUCERNE. 



and all this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on 
granite pedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. 
The Lion of Lucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so 
impressive as where he is. 

Martyrdom is the luckiest fate that can befall some people. Louia 
XVI. did not die in his bed, consequently history is very gentle with 
him ; she is charitable toward his failings, and she finds in him high 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 229 

virtues which are not usually considered to be virtues when they are 
lodged in kings. She makes him out to be a person with a meek and 
modest spirit, the heart of a female saint, and a wrong head. None of 
these qualities are kingly, but the last. Taken together they make a 
character which would have fared harshly at the hands of history if its 
owner had had the ill luck to miss martyrdom. With the best inten- 
tions to do the right thing, he always managed to do the wrong one. 
Moreover, nothing could get the female saint out of him. He knew, 
well enough, that in national emergencies he must not consider how he 
ought to act as a man, but how he ought to act as a king : so he 
honestly tried to sink the man and be the king — but it was a failure, he 
only succeeded in being the female saint. He was not instant in season, 
but out of season. He could not be persuaded to do a thing while it 
could do any good — he was iron, he was adamant in his stubbornness 
then — but as soon as the thing had reached a point where it would 
be positively harmful to do it, do it he would, and nothing could stop 
him. He did not do it because it would be harmful, but because he 
hoped it was not yet too late to achieve by it the good which it would 
have done if applied earlier. His comprehension was always a train or 
two behindhand. If a national toe required amputating, he could not 
see that it needed anything more than poulticing ; when others saw 
that the mortification had reached the knee, he first perceived that the 
toe needed cutting off — so he cut it off; and he severed the leg at 
the knee when others saw that the disease had reached the thigh. He 
was good, and honest, and well meaning, in the matter of chasing 
national diseases, but he never could overtake one. As a private man, 
he would have been lovable ; but viewed as a king, he was strictly 
contemptible. 

His was a most unroyal career, but the most pitiable spectacle in it 
was his sentimental treachery to his Swiss guard on that memorable 10th 
of August, when he allowed those heroes to be massacred in his cause, 
and forbade them to shed the ' sacred French blood ' purporting to be 
flowing in the veins of the red-capped mob of miscreants that was raging 
around the palace. He meant to be kingly, but he was only the 
female saint once more. Some of his biographers think that upon 
this occasion the spirit of Saint Louis had descended upon him. It 
must have found pretty cramped quarters. If Napoleon I. had stood in 



230 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

the shoes of Louis XVI. that day, instead of being merely a casual and; 
unknown looker-on, there would be no Lion of Lucerne now, but there 
would be a well-stocked Communist graveyard in Paris, which would 
answer just as well to remember August 10 by. 

Martyrdom made a saint of Marie Queen of Scots three hundred 
years ago, and she has hardly lost all of her saintship yet. Martyrdom 
made a saint of the trivial and foolish Marie Antoinette, and her bio- 
graphers still keep her fragrant with the odour of sanctity to this day, 
while unconsciously proving upon almost every page they write that 
the only calamitous instinct which her husband lacked, she supplied — 
the instinct to root out and get rid of an honest, able, and loyal official, 
wherever she found him. The hideous but beneficent French Revolu- 
tion would have been deferred, or would have fallen short of com- 
pleteness, or even might not have happened at all, if Marie Antoinette 
had made the unwise mistake of not being born. The world owes a 
great deal to the French Revolution, and consequently to its two chief 
promoters, Louis the Poor in Spirit and his queen. 

We did not buy any wooden images of the Lion, nor any ivory, or 
ebony, or marble, or chalk, or sugar, or chocolate ones, or even any 
photographic slanders of him. The truth is, these copies were so 
common, so universal, in the shops and everywhere, that they pre- 
sently became as intolerable to the wearied eye as the latest popular 
melody usually becomes to the harassed ear. In Lucerne, too, the wood 
carvings of other sorts, which had been so pleasant to look upon when 
one saw them occasionally at home, soon began to fatigue us. We 
grew very tired of seeing wooden quails and chickens picking and 
strutting around clock faces, and still more tired of seeing wooden 
images of the alleged chamois skipping about wooden rocks, or lying 
upon them in family groups, or peering alertly up from behind them. 
The first day, I would have bought a hundred and fifty of these clocks 
if I had had the money — and I did buy three — but on the third day 
the disease had run its course, I had convalesced, and was in the market 
once more — trying to sell. However, I had no luck; which was just 
as well, for the things will be pretty enough, no doubt, when I get 
them home. 

For years my pet aversion had been the cuckoo clock ; now here I 
was, at last, right in the creature's home ; so wherever I went, that dis- 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



231 



tressing ' hoo'hoo ! /joo'hoo ! Aoo'hoo ! ' was always in my ears. For a 
nervous man, this was a fine state of things. Some sounds are hatefuller 
than others, but no sound is quite so inane, and silly, and aggravating 
as the ' Aoo'hoo ' of a cuckoo clock, I think. I bought one, and am 
carrying it home to a certain person ; for I have always said that if the 
opportunity ever happened, I would do that man an ill turn. What I 
meant, was, that I would break one of his legs, or something of that 
sort ; but in Lucerne I instantly saw that I could impair his mind. 
That would be more lasting, and more satisfactory every way. So I 
bought the cuckoo clock ; and if I ever get home with it, he is ' my 
meat,' as they say in the mines. I thought of another candidate — a 




HE LIKED CLOCKS. 

book reviewer, whom I could name if I wanted to — but after thinking 
it over, I didn't buy him a clock. I couldn't injure his mind. 

We visited the two long covered wooden bridges which span the 
green and brilliant Eeuss just below where it goes plunging and 
hurrahing out of the lake. These rambling, swaybacked tunnels are 
very attractive things, with their alcoved outlooks upon the lovely 
and inspiriting water. They contain two or three hundred queer old 
pictures, by old Swiss masters — old boss sign painters, who flourished 
before the decadence of art. 

The lake is alive with fishes, plainly visible to the eye, for the 
water is very clear. The parapets in front of the hotels were usually 



232 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

fringed with fishers of all ages. One day I thought I would stop and 
see a fish caught. The result brought back to my mind, very forcibly, 
a circumstance which I had not thought of before for twelve years. 
This one : — 

THE MAN WHO PUT UP AT GADSBY'S. 

When my odd friend Eiley and I were newspaper correspondents 
in Washington, in the winter of '67, we were coming down Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue one night, near midnight, in a driving storm of snow, 
when the flash of a street lamp fell upon a man who was eagerly tearing 
along in the opposite direction. This man instantly stopped and ex- 
claimed — 

I This is lucky ! You are Mr. Riley, ain't you ? ' 

Riley was the most self-possessed and solemnly deliberate person 
in the republic. He stopped, looked his man over from head to foot, 
and finally said — 

I I am Mr. Riley. Did you happen to be looking for me ? ' 

' That's just what I was doing,' said the man joyously, ' and it's 
the biggest luck in the world that I've found you. My name is Lykins. 
I'm one of the teachers of the High School, San Francisco. As soon 
as I heard the San Francisco postmastership was vacant, I made up my 
mind to get it — and here I am.' 

1 Yes,' said Riley, slowly, ' as you have remarked .... Mr. Lykins 
.... here you are. And have you got it ? ' 

' Well, not exactly got it, but the next thing to it. I've brought 
a petition, signed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction and all 
the teachers, and by more than two hundred other people. Now I 
want you, if you'll be so good, to go around with me to the Pacific de- 
legation ; for I want to rush this thing through and get along home.' 

' If the matter is so pressing, you will prefer that we visit the delega- 
tion to-night,' said Riley, in a voice which had nothing mocking in 
it — to an unaccustomed ear. 

' Oh, to-night, by all means ! I haven't got any time to fool around. 
I want their promise before I go to bed — I ain't the talking kind, I'm 
the doing kind ! ' 

' Yes .... you've come to the right place for that. When did 
you arrive ? ' 



A TRAMP ABROAD, 



233 



-for San Francisco next 



1 Just an hour ago.' 

4 When are you intending to leave ?' 

1 For New York to-morrow evening- 
morning.' 

1 Just so ... . What are you going to do to-morrow ? ' 

'Do! Why, I've got to go to the President with the petition and 
the delegation, and get the appointment, haven't I ? ' 

1 Yes .... very true .... that is correct. And then what ? ' 

4 Executive Session of the Senate at 2 p.m. — got to get the appoint- 
ment confirmed — I reckon you'll grant that ? ' 

1 Yes .... yes,' said Riley, meditatively, ' you are right again. 
Then you take the train for New York in the evening and the steamer 
for San Francisco next morning ? ' 

1 That's it — that's the way I map it out.' 

Riley considered a while, and then said — 

1 You couldn't stay. ... a 

day .... well, say two days j|Ov\ 
longer ? ' gj ' 

1 Bless your soul, no ! It's § >J< 
not my style. I ain't a man to 
go fooling around — I'm a man Si! 
that does things, I tell you.' 

The storm was raging, the 
thick snow blowing in gusts. 
Riley stood silent, apparently 
deep in a reverie, during a 
minute or more, then he looked 
up and said — 

1 Have you ever heard about 
that man who putupatGadsby's 
once ? . . . . But I see you 
haven't.' 

He backed Mr. Lykins 
against an iron fence, button- 
holed him, fastened him with 

i • ti i a • ™ • * WILL TELL YOU.' 

his eye, like the Ancient Mari- 
ner, and proceeded to unfold his narrative as placidly and peacefully 




234 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



as if we were all stretched comfortably in a blossomy summer meadow,, 
instead of being persecuted by a wintry midnight tempest : — 

' I will tell you about that man. It was in Jackson's time. Gadsby's- 
was the principal hotel then. Well, this man arrived from Tennessee 
about nine o'clock one morning, with a black coachman and a splendid 
four-horse carriage and an elegant dog, which he was evidently fond 
and proud of; he drove up before Gadsby's, and the clerk and the 




couldn't wait. 

landlord and everybody rushed out to take charge of him ; but he 
said " Never mind," and jumped out and told the coachman to wait — 
said he hadn't time to take anything to eat, he only had a little claim 
against the Government to collect, would run across the way to the 
Treasury and fetch the money, and then get right along back to Ten- 
nessee, for he was in considerable of a hurry. 

' Well, about eleven o'clock that night he came back and ordered 
a bed and told them to put the horses up — said he would collect the 



.. 


f ! W 


111. 


/\ 


/jip^/TiTptS * D s B Y 'S _Ji » i - 




''' PM 


EO 






iffiiiiifHjUs-'J . 



DIDN T CAEE FOR STYLE. 



claim in the morning. This was in January, you understand — January 
1834 — the 3rd of January — Wednesday. 

' Well, on the 5th of February he sold the fine carriage and bought 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



235 



a cheap secondhand one — said it would answer just as well to take the 
money home in, and he didn't care for style. 

1 On the 11th of August he sold a pair of the fine horses — said he'd 



r^. 




A PAIS BETTER THAN FOUR. 



often thought a pair was better than four, to go over the rough mountain 
roads with where a body had to be careful about his driving — and there 
wasn't so much of his claim but he could lug the money home with a 
pair easy enough. 




TWO WASN'T necessary. 

1 On the 13th of December he sold another horse — said two warn't 
necessary to drag that old light vehicle with — in fact, one could snatch 
it along faster than was absolutely necessary, now that it was good 
solid winter weather, and the roads in splendid condition. 







JUST THE TRICK. 



' On the 17th of February, 1835, he sold the old carriage and 
bought a cheap secondhand buggy — said a buggy was just the trick to 



236 



A TRAMP ABROAD, 



skim along mushy, slushy early spring roads with, and he had always 
wanted to try a buggy on those mountain roads, anyway. 




GOING TO MAKE THEM STARE. 

1 On the 1st of August he sold the buggy and bought the remains of 
an old sulky — said he just wanted to see those green Tennesseeans 
stare and gawk when they saw him come a-ripping along in a sulky — 
didn't believe they'd ever heard of a sulky in their lives. 

'Well, on the 29th of August he sold his coloured coachman — 



^WJj 




NOT THROWN AWAY. 



said he didn't need a coachman for a sulky — wouldn't be room enough for 
two in it anyway — and besides it wasn't every day that Providence sent a 
man a fool who was willing to pay nine hundred dollars for such a 
third-rate negro as that — been wanting to get rid of the creature for 
years, but didn't like to throw him away. 




WHAT THE DOCTOR RECOMMENDED. 



' Eighteen months later — that is to say, on the 15th of February, 
1837 — he sold the sulky and bought a saddle — said horseback riding 
was what the doctor had always recommended him to take, and dog'd if 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



237 



he wanted to risk his neck going over those mountain roads on wheels 
in the dead o£ winter, not if he knew himself. 




WANTED TO PEEL SAFE. 

On the 9th of April he sold the saddle — said he wasn't going to risk 
his life with any perishable saddle-girth that ever was made, over a rainy r 
miry April road, while he could ride bareback and know and feel he 
was safe — always had despised to ride on a saddle, anyway. 

' On the 24th of April he sold his horse — said, " I'm just fifty-seven 
to-day, hale and hearty — it would be a pretty howdy-do for me to be wast- 



iKiMA 




PREFERRED TO TRAMP ON FOOT. 

ing such a trip as that and such weather as this on a horse, when there ain't 
anything in the world so splendid as a tramp on foot through the fresh 
spring woods and over the cheery mountains, to a man that is a man — 
and I can make my dog carry my claim in a little bundle anyway, 
when it's collected. So to-morrow I'll be up bright and early, make 
my little old collection, and mosey off to Tennessee, on my own hind 
legs, with a rousing Good-bye to Gadsby's." 

1 On the 22nd of June he sold his dog — said '•• Dern a dog, anyway, 
where you're just starting off on a rattling bully pleasure-tramp through 
the summer woods and hills — perfect nuisance — chases the squirrels, 
barks at everything, goes a-capering and splattering around in the fords — 
man can't get any chance to reflect and enjoy nature — and I'd a blamed 



238 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

sight rather carry the claim myself, it's a mighty sight safer ; a dog's 
mighty uncertain in a financial way — always noticed it — well, good-bye, 
boys — last call, — I'm off for Tennessee, with a good leg and a gay heart, 
■early in the morning ! " ' 




DERN A DOG ANYWAY. 

There was a pause and a silence — except the noise ol the wind 
and the pelting snow. Mr. Lykins said, impatiently — 

'Well?' 

Riley said — 

' Well — that was thirty years ago.' 

1 Very well, very well — what of it ? ' 

1 I'm great friends with that old patriarch. He comes every evening 
to tell me good-bye. I saw him an hour ago — he's off for Tennessee 
early to-morrow morning — as usual ; said he calculated to get his claim 
through and be off before night-owls like me have turned out of bed. 
The tears were in his eyes, he was so glad he was going to see his old 
Tennessee and his friends once, more.' 

Another silent pause. The stranger broke it — 

1 Is that all ? ' 

1 That is all.' 

' Wei 1 for the time of night, and the kind of night, it seems to me 
the story wu_ a ^\ long enough. But what's it all /or?' 

' Oh, nothing in particular.' 

' Well, where' s the point of it ? ' 

1 Oh, there isn't any particular point to it. Only, if you are not in 
too much of a hurry to rush off to San Francisco with that post-office 
appointment, Mr. Lykins, I'd advise you to " put up at Gadsby's " for a 
spell, and take it easy. Good-bye. God bless you ! ' 

So saying, Riley blandly turned on his heel and left the astonished 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



239 



school teacher standing there, a musing and motionless snow image 
shining in the broad glow of the street lamp. 

He never got that post-office. 

To go back to Lucerne and its fishers, I concluded, after about 
nine hours' waiting, that the man who proposes to tarry till he sees 
somebody hook one of those well-fed and experienced fishes will find it 
wisdom to ' put up at Gadsby's ' and take it easy. It is likely that a 
fish has not been caught on that lake pier for forty years; but no 
matter, the patient fisher watches his cork there all the day long just 
the same, and seems to enjoy it. One may see the fisher-loafers just 
as thick and contented and happy and patient all along the Seine at 
Paris, but tradition says that the only thing ever caught there in modern 
times is a thing they don't fish for at all — the recent dog and the trans- 
lated cat. 




A FISHER 



240 A TRAMP ABROJD 



CHAPTER XXVIL 

Close by the Lion of Lucerne is what they call the ' Glacier Garden, * 
and it is the only one in the world. It is on high ground. Four 
or five years ago some workmen who were digging foundations for a 
house came upon this interesting relic of a long-departed age. Scientific 
men perceived in it a confirmation of their theories concerning the 
glacial period ; so through their persuasions the little tract of ground 
was bought, and permanently protected against being built upon. The 
soil was removed, and there lay the rasped and guttered track which 
the ancient glacier had made as it moved along upon its slow and 
tedious journey. This track was perforated by huge pot-shaped holes 
in the bed-rock, formed by the furious washing around in them of 
boulders by the turbulent torrent which flows beneath all glaciers. 
These huge round boulders still remain in the holes ; they and the walls 
of the holes are worn smooth by the long-continued chafing which they 
gave each other in those old days. It took a mighty force to churn 
these big lumps of stone around in that vigorous way. The neighbour- 
ing country had a very different shape at that time — the valleys have 
risen up and become hills since, and the hills have become valleys. 
The boulders discovered in the pots had travelled a great distance, for 
there is no rock like them nearer than the distant Rhone Glacier. 

For some days we were content to enjoy looking at the blue Lake 
Lucerne, and at the piled-up masses of snow, mountains that border 
it all round : an enticing spectacle this last, for there is a strange and 
fascinating beauty and charm about a majestic snow peak, with the 
sun blazing upon it or the moonlight softly enriching it ; but finally, 
we concluded to try a bit of excursioning around on a steamboat, and a 
dash on foot at the Rigi. Very well, we had a delightful trip to Fluelen, 
on a breezy sunny day. Everybody sat on the upper deck, on benches, 




rLACIER GAHDRN, 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 243 

under an awning ; everybody talked, laughed, and exclaimed at the 
wonderful scenery. In truth, a trip on that lake is almost the perfec- 
tion of pleasuring. The mountains were a never-ceasing marvel. 
Sometimes they rose straight up out of thp lake, and towered aloft 



:><m. 




THE LAKE AND MOUNTAINS (MOXT PILATUS> 

and overshadowed our pigmy steamer with their prodigious bulk in the 
most impressive way. Not snow-clad mountains these, yet they climbed 
high enough towards the sky to meet the clouds and veil their fore- 
heads in them. They were not barren and repulsive, but clothed in 
green, and restful and pleasant to the eye ; and they were so almost 
straight-up-and-down sometimes that one could not imagine a man 
being able to keep his footing upon such a surface, yet there are paths, 
and the Swiss people go up and down them every day. 

Sometimes one of these monster precipices had the slight inclination 
•of the huge ship-houses in dock -yards ; then high aloft towards the 
sky it took a little stronger inclination, like that of a mansard roof, and 
perched on this dizzy mansard one's eye detected little things like 
martin-boxes ; and presently perceived that these were the dwellings of 
peasants — an airy place for a home, truly. And suppose a peasant 
should walk in his sleep, or his child should fall out of the front yard T 

b 2 



244 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



The friends would have a tedious long journey down out of those cloud- 
heights, be- 
fore they 
found the re- 
mains. And 
yet those far- 
away homes 
looked ever 
so seductive; 
they were so 
remote from 
the troubled 
world, they 
reposed in 
such an at- 
mosphere of 
peace and of 

dreams — surely no one who had learned 
to live up there would ever want to live 
on a meaner level. 

We swept through the prettiest little 
curving arms of the lake, among these 
colossal green walls, enjoying new delights 
always as the stately panorama unfolded 
itself before us and re-rolled and hid itself 
behind us ; and now and then we had the 
thrilling surprise of bursting suddenly 
upon a tremendous white mass like the 
distant and dominating Jungfrau, or some 



,1 






MOUNTAIN PATH'S. 



kindred giant, looming head and shoulders 
above a tumbled waste of lesser Alps. 

Once while I was hungrily taking in one of these surprises, and 
doing my be>t to get all I possibly could of it while it should last, I was 
interrupted by a young and care -free voice — 

' You're an American, I think ? So'm 1/ 

He was about eighteen, or possibly nineteen ; slender, and of medium 
height ; open, frank, happy face ; a restless but independent eye ; a 






A TRAMP ABROAD. 



245 



snub nose, which had the air of drawing back with a decent reserve 
from the silky new-born moustache below it until it should be intro- 
duced; a loosely-hung jaw, calculated to work easily in the sockets. 
He wore a low-crowned, narrow-brimmed straw hat, with a broad blue 
ribbon around it, which had a white anchor embroidered on it in 
front; nobby short-tailed coat, pantaloons, vest — all trim and neat, 
and up with the fashion; red-striped stockings, very low-quarter patent 
leather shoes, tied with black ribbon ; blue ribbon around his neck 
wide-open collar ; tiny diamond studs, wrinkleless kids, projecting 
cuffs, fastened with large oxydised silver sleeve-buttons bearino- the 
device of a dog's face — English pug. He carried a slim cane, sur- 
mounted with an English pug's head with red glass eyes. Under 
his arm he carried a German 
Grammar, Otto's. His hair was 
short, straight, and smooth ; and 
presently, when he turned his head 
a moment, I saw that it was nicely 
parted behind. He took a cigarette 
out of a dainty box, stuck it into a 
meerschaum holder which he car- 
ried in a morocco case, and reached 
for my cigar. While he was light- 
ing, I said — 

' Yes, I am an American.' 

' I knew it. I can always tell 
them. What ship did you come 
over in ? ' 

' " Holsatia." ' 

' We came in the " Batavia" — 
Cunard, you know. What kind 
of a passage did you have ? ' 

1 Tolerably rough.' 

1 So did we. Captain said he'd 
hardly ever seen it rougher. Where are you from V 

' New England.' 

1 So'm I. I'm from New Bloomfield. Anybody with you ? * 

* Yes, a friend.' 




YOU HE AN AMERICAN — SO AM I.' 



246 A TEA MP ABU AD. 

1 Our whole family's along. It's awful slow going around alone, 
don't you think so ? ' 

' Rather slow.' 

' Ever been over here before ? : 

1 Yes. 

'I haven't. My first trip. But we've been all around — Paris, 
and everywhere. I'm to enter Harvard next year. Studying German 
all the time now. Can't enter till I know German. I know con- 
siderable French. I get along pretty well in Paris, or anywhere where 
they speak French. What hotel are you stopping at? ' 

' Schweitzerhof.' 

' No ! Is that so ? I never see you in the reception room. I go 
to the reception room a good deal of the time, because there's so 
many Americans there. I make lots of acquaintances. I know an 
American as soon as I see him, and so I speak to him and make his 
acquaintance. I like to be always making acquaintances, don't you ? ' 

1 Lord, yes ! ' 

1 You see it breaks up a trip like this, first rate. I never get bored 
on a trip like this, if I can make acquaintances and have somebody to 
talk to. But I think a trip like this would be an awful bore if a 
body couldn't find anybody to get acquainted with and talk to on a 
trip like this. I'm fond of talking, ain't you ? 

' Passionately.' 

1 Have you felt bored on this trip ? ' 

' Not all the time, part of it.' 

' That's it — you see you ought to go around and get acquainted, 
and talk. That's my way. That's the way I always do — I just go 
'round, 'round, 'round, and talk, talk, talk — I never get bored. You 
been up the Rigi yet ? ' 

' No.' 

« Going ? ' 

* I think so.' 

* What hotel you going to stop at ? ' 

' I don't know. Is there more than one ? 

' Three. You stop at the Schreiber — you'll find it full of Americans. 
What ship did you say you came over in ? ' 
« " City of Antwerp." ' 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 217 

1 German, I guess. You going to Geneva ? ' 

< Yes.' 

' What hotel you going to stop at ? ' 

' Hotel de l'Ecu de Geneve.' 

' Don't you do it ! No Americans there ! You stop at one of those 
big hotels over the bridge — they're packed full of Americans.' 

' But I want to practise my Arabic' 

' Good gracious, do you speak Arabic ? ' 

' Yes — well enough to get along.' 

' Why, hang it, you won't get along in Geneva — they don't speak 
Arabic, they speak French. What hotel are you stopping at here ? ' 

* Hotel Pension-Beaurivage.' 

' Sho, you ought to stop at the Schweitzerhof. Didn't you know 
the Schweitzerhof was the best hotel in Switzerland ? Look at your 
Baedeker.' 

' Yes, I know — but I had an idea there warn't any Americans there.' 

' No Americans ! Why, bless your soul, it's just alive with them ! 
I'm in the great reception room most all the time. I make lots of 
acquaintances there. Not as many as I did at first, because now only 
the new ones stop in there — the others go right along through. Where 
are you from ? ' 

' Arkansaw.' 

' Is that so ? I'm from New England — New Bloomfield's my town 
when I'm at home. I'm having a mighty good time to-day, ain't you ? ' 

' Divine.' 

' That's what I call it. I like this knocking around, loose and 
easy, and making acquaintances and talking. I know an American 
soon as I see him ; so I go and speak to him and make his acquaintance. 
I ain't ever bored on a trip like this if I can make new acquaintances 
and talk. I'm awful fond of talking when I can get hold of the right 
kind of a person, ain't you ? ' 

' I prefer it to any other dissipation.' 

' That's my notion, too. Now some people like to take a book and 
sit down and read, and read, and read, or moon around yawping at 
the lake or these mountains and things, but that ain't my way ; no, sir, 
if they like it, let 'em do it, I don't object ; but as for me, talking's what 
I like. You been up the Eigi ? ' 



248 



A 1RAMP ABROAD. 



4 Yes.' 

* What hotel did you stop at ? ' 
1 Schreiber.' 

'That's the place ! — I stopped there too. Full of Americans, wasn't 
it? It always is — always is. That's what they say. Everybody 
says that. What ship did you come over in ? ' 
< " Ville de Paris." ' 

'French, I reckon. What kind of a passage did .... Excuse 
me a minute, there's some Americans I haven't seen before.' 

And away he went. He went uninjured too. I had the murderous 
impulse to harpoon him in the back with my alpenstock, but as I 
raised the weapon the disposition left me ; I found I hadn't the heart 
to kill him, he was such a joyous, innocent, good-natured numskull. 

Half an hour later I was sitting on a 
bench inspecting, with strong interest, a noble 
monolith which we were skimming by — a 
monolith not shaped by man, but by 
Nature's free, great hand — a massy pyr- 
imidal rock eighty feet high, devised by 
<^f/ Nature ten million years ago against the 
day when a man worthy of it should need 
it for his monument. The time came at 
last, and now this grand remembrancer 
bears Schiller's name in huge letters upon 
its face. Curiously enough, this rock was 
not degraded or defiled in any way. It is 
said that two years ago a stranger let him- 
self down from the top of it with ropes and 
pulleys, and painted all over it, in blue letters 
bigger than those in Schiller's name, these 
words : — 

' Try Sozodont ; ' 
1 Buy Sun Stove Polish ; ■ 
' Helmbold's Buchu ; ' 
enterprise. « Try Benzaline for the Blood.* 




He was captured, and it turned out that he was an American, 
his trial the judge said to him : — 



Upon 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 249 

* You are from a land where any insolent that wants to is privileged 
to profane and insult Nature, and, through her, Nature's God, if by so 
doing he can put a sordid penny in his pocket. But here the case is 
different. Because you are a foreigner and ignorant, I will make youi 
sentence light : if you were a native, I would deal strenuously with 
you. Hear and obey. You will immediately remove every trace of 
your offensive work from the Schiller monument ; you will pay a fine 
of ten thousand francs ; you will suffer two years' imprisonment at hard 
labour; you will then be horsewhipped, tarred and feathered, deprived 
of your ears, ridden on a rail to the confines of the canton, and banished 
for ever. The severer penalties are omitted in your case— not as a grace 
to you, but to that great repubiic which had the misfortune to give you 
birth.' 

The steamer's benches were ranged back to back across the deck. 
My back hair was mingling innocently with the back hair of a couple 
of ladies. Presently they were addressed by someone and I overheard 
this conversation — 

1 You are Americans, I think ? So'm I.' 

' Yes — we are Americans.' 

4 1 knew it — I can always tell them. What ship did you come 
over in ? ' 

"'City of Chester.'" 

'Oh, yes— Inman line. We came in the "Batavia" — Cunard, you 
know. What kind of a passage did you have ? ' 

1 Pretty fair.' 

' That was luck. We had it awful rough. Captain said he'd hardly 
ever seen it rougher. Where are you from ? ' 

1 New Jersey.' 

' So'm I. No — I didn't mean that : I'm from New England. New 
Bloomfield's my place. These your children? — belong to both of 
you ? ' 

' Only to one of us; they are mine; my friend is not married.' 

I Single, I reckon ? So'm I. Are you two ladies travelling alone ? ' 
i No — my husband is with us.' 

i Our whole family's along. It's awful slow, going around alone — 
don't you think so ? ' 

I I suppose it must be.' 

' Hi, there's Mount Pilatus coming in sight again. Named after 



250 



A TRAMP ABB AD. 



Pontius Pilate, you know, that shot the apple off of William Tell's 
head. Guidebook tells all about it, they say. I didn't read it — an 
American told me. I don't read when I'm knocking around like this, 
having a good time. Did you ever see the 
chapel where William Tell used to preach ? * 
i I did not know he ever preached there.' 
1 Oh, yes, he did. That American told 
me so. He don't ever shut up his guide- 
book. He knows more about this lake than 
the fishes in it. Besides, they call it "Tell's 
Chapel" — you know that yourself. You 
ever been over here before ? ' 
< Yes.' 

' I haven't. It's my first trip. But we've 
been all around — Paris, and everywhere. 
I'm to enter Harvard next year. Studying 
German all th e time now. Can't enter till I 
know German. This book's Otto's Grammar. 
It's a mighty good book to get the ich habe 
gehabt haben" s out of. But I don't really study 
when I'm knocking around this way. If the 
notion takes me, I just run over my little 
old ich habe gehabt, clu hast gehabt, er hat 
gehabt, wir haben gehabt, ihr habet gehabt, 
sie haben gehabt — kind of " Now-I-lay-me- 
down-to-sleep " fashion, you know, and after 
the constant searcher, that, maybe I don't buckle to it again for 
three days. It's awful undermining to the 
intellect, German is; yon want to take it in small doses, or first you 
know your brains all run together, and you feel them sloshing around 
in your head same as so much drawn butter. But French is different ; 
French ain't anything. I ain't any more afraid of French than a 
tramp's afraid of pie ; I can rattle off my little fai, tu as, il a, and 
the rest of it, just as easy as a-b-c. I get along pretty well in Paris, 
or anywhere where they speak French. What hotel you stopping at ? * 
' The Schweitzerhof.' 




* No ! is that so ? I never see you in the big reception room. 



I go 



A TRAMP ABB AD. 251 

in there a good deal of the time, because there's so many Americans 
there. I make lots of acquaintances. You been up the Rigi yet ? ' 

< No.' 
'Going?' 

< We think of it.' 

' What hotel you going to stop at ? ' 
' I don't know.' 

' Well, then, you stop at the Schreiber — it's full of Americans, 
What ship did you come over in ? ' 

< " City of Chester." ' 

* Oh, yes, I remember I asked you that before. But I always ask 
everybody what ship they came over in, and so sometimes I forget and 
ask again. You going to Geneva ? ' 

1 Yes.' 

1 What hotel you going to stop at ? ' 

'We expect to stop in a pension.' 

' I don't hardly believe you'll like that ; there's very few Americana 
m the pensions. What hotel are you stopping at here ? ' 

' The Schweitzerhof .' 

' Oh, yes, I asked you that before, too. But I always ask every- 
body what hotel they're stopping at, and so I've got my head all mixed 
up with hotels. But it makes talk, and I love to talk. It refreshes me 
up so — don't it you — on a trip like this ? ' 

' Yes — sometimes.' 

' Well, it does me, too. As long as I'm talking I never feel bored — 
ain't that the way with you ? ' 

1 Yes — generally. But there are exceptions to the rule.' 

' Oh, of course. I don't care to talk to everybody myself. If a 
person starts in to j abb er-j abb er -jabber about scenery, and history, 
and pictures, and all sorts of tiresome things, I get the fan-tods mighty 
soon. I say, " Well, I must be going now — hope I'll see you again" — 
and then I take a walk. Where you from ? ' 

' New Jersey.' 

1 Why, bother it all, I asked you that before, too. Have you seen 
the Lion of Lucerne ? ' 

' Not yet.' 

* Nor I, either. But the man who told me about Mount Pilatus- 



252 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



cays it's one of the things to see. It's twenty-eight feet long. It don't 
seem reasonable, but he said so, anyway. He saw it yesterday ; said 
it was dying then, so I reckon it's dead by this time. But that ain't 
any matter, of course they'll stuff it. Did you say the children are 
yours — or hers ? ' 

' Mine.' 

1 Oh, so you did. Are you going up the .... no, I asked you 
that. What ship .... no, I asked you that, too. What hotel are 
you .... no, you told me that. Let me see .... um .... oh, 
what kind of a voy .... no, we've been over that ground too. 
Um .... um .... well, I believe that is all. Bonjour — I am very 
glad to have made your acquaintance, ladies. Guten Tag.' 




A TRAMP ABROAD. 253 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

The Rigi-Kulm is an imposing Alpine mass, 6,000 feet high, which 
stands by itself, and commands a mighty prospect of blue lakes, green 
valleys, and snowy mountains — a compact and magnificent picture three 
hundred miles in circumference. The ascent is made by rail, or horse- 
back, or on foot, as one may prefer. I and my agent panoplied ourselves 
in walking costume, one bright morning, and started down the lake on 
the steamboat ; we got ashore at the village of Waggis, three-quarters 
of an hour distant from Lucerne. This village is at the foot of the 
mountain. 

We were soon tramping leisurely up the leafy mule-path, and 
then the talk began to flow, as usual. It was twelve o'clock noon, and 
a breezy, cloudless day ; the ascent was gradual, and the glimpses, from 
under the curtaining boughs, of blue water, and tiny sail-boats, and 
beetling cliffs, were as charming as glimpses of dreamland. All the 
circumstances were perfect — and the anticipations, too, for we should 
soon be enjoying, for the first time, that wonderful spectacle, an 
Alpine sunrise — the object of our journey. There was (apparently) 
no real need to hurry, for the guide-book made the walking distance 
from Waggis to the summit only three hours and a quarter. I say 
' apparently,' because the guide-book had already fooled us once — about 
the distance from Allerheiligen to Oppenau — and for aught I knew 
it might be getting ready to fool us again. We were only certain 
as to the altitudes — we calculated to find out for ourselves how many 
hours it is from the bottom to the top. The summit is 6,000 feet 
above the sea, but only 4,500 feet above the lake. When we had 
walked half an hour, we were fairly into the swing and humour of 
the undertaking, so we cleared for action; that is to say, we got a boy 



254 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



•whom we met to carry our alpenstocks, and satchels, and overcoats 

and things for us ; that left us free for business. 

I suppose we must have stopped oftener to stretch out on the grass 

in the hhnde and take a bit of a smoke than this boy was used to, for 
presently he asked if it had been our idea 
to hire him by the job or by the year. We 
told him he could move along if he was in 
a hurry. He said he wasn't in such a very 
particular hurry, but he wanted to get to the 
top while he was young. We told him to 
clear out then, and leave the things at the 
uppermost hotel and say we should be along 
presently. He said he would secure us a 
hotel if he could, but if they were all full he 
would ask them to build another one and 
hurry up and get the paint and plaster dry 
against we arrived. Still gently chaffing us, 
be pushed ahead, up the trail, and soon dis- 
appeared. By six o'clock we were pretty high 
up in the air, and the view of lake and moun- 
tains had greatly grown in breadth and inte- 
rest. We halted a while at a little public- 
house, where we had bread and cheese and a 
quart or two of fresh milk, out on the porch, 
with the big panorama all before us — and 
then moved on again. 

Ten minutes afterwards we met a hot, red- 
faced man plunging down the mountain, with 
mighty strides, swinging his alpenstock ahead 
of him and taking a grip on the ground with 
its iron point to support these big strides. 
He stopped, fanned himself with his hat, 
swabbed the perspiration from his face and 

neck with a red handkerchief, panted a moment or two, and asked how 

far it was to Waggis. I said three hours. He looked surprised and said — 
' Why, it seems as if I could toss a biscuit into the lake from here, 

it's so close by. Is that an inn there ? ' 




A TRAMP ABROAD. 



I said it was. 

' Well,' said he, ' I can't stand another three hours, I've had enough 
for to-day : I'll take a bed there.' 

I asked — 

' Are we nearly to the top ? ' 

1 Nearly to the top ! Why, bless your soul, you haven't really 
started yet.' 

I said we would put up at the inn, too. So we turned back and 
ordered a hot supper, and had quite a jolly evening of it with this 
Englishman. 

The German landlady 
gave us neat rooms and nice 
beds, and when I and my 
agent turned in, it was with 
the resolution to be up early 
and make the utmost of our 
first Alpine sunrise. But 
of course we were dead 
tired, and slept like police- 
men ; so when we awoke 
in the morning and ran to 
the window it was already 
too late, because it was 
half-past eleven. It was 
a sharp disappointment. 
However, we ordered break- 
fast and told the landlady 
to call the Englishman, but the englishman. 
she said he was already up and off at daybreak — and swearing mad 
about something or other. We could not find out what the matter was. 
He had asked the landlady the altitude of her place above the level of 
the lake, and she had told him fourteen hundred and ninety-five feet. 
That was all that was said ; then he lost his temper. He said that be- 
tween fools and guide-books, a man could acquire ignorance enough 

in twenty-four hours in a country like this to last him a year. Harris 
believed our boy had been loading him up with misinformation ; and this 
was probably the case, for his epithet described that boy to a dot. 




256 A Til AMP ABROAD. 

We got under way about the turn of noon, and pulled out for the 
summit again, with a fresh and vigorous step. When we had got about 
two hundred yards, and stopped to rest, I glanced to the left while I 
was lighting my pipe, and in* the distance detected a long worm of black 
smoke crawling lazily up the steep mountain. Of course that was the 
locomotive. We propped ourselves on our elbows at once, to gaze, for 
we had never seen a mountain railway yet. Presently we could make 
out the train. It seemed incredible that the thing should creep straight 
up a sharp slant like the roof of a house — but there it was, and it was 
doing that very miracle. 

In the course of a couple of hours we reached a fine breezy alti- 
tude where the little shepherd-huts had big stones all over their 
roofs to hold them down to the earth when the great storms rage. The 
country was wild and rocky about here, but there were plenty of 
frees, plenty of moss, and grass. 

Away off on the opposite shore of the lake we could see some 
villages, and now for the first time we could observe the real difference 
between their proportions and those of the giant mountains at whose 
feet they slept. When one is in one of those villages it seems spacious, 
and its houses seem high and not out of proportion to the mountain that 
overhangs them — but from our altitude, what a change ! The mountains 
were bigger and grander than ever, as they stood there thinking their 
solemn thoughts with their heads in the drifting clouds, but the villages 
at their feet — when the painstaking eye could trace them up and find 
them — were so reduced, so almost invisible, and lay so flat against the 
ground, that the exactest simile I can devise is to compare them to 
ant-deposits of granulated dirt overshadowed by the huge bulk of 
a cathedral. The steamboats skimming along under the stupendous 
precipices were diminished by distance to the daintiest little toys, the 
sail-boats and row-boats to shallops proper for fairies that keep house 
in the cups of lilies and ride to court on the backs of bumble-bees. 

Presently we came upon half a dozen sheep nibbling grass in the 
spray of a stream of clear water that sprang from a rock wall a hundred 
feet high, and all at once our ears were startled with a melodious ' Lul 
... 1 .... 1 ... . lul-lul-Zahee-o-o-o !' pealing joyously from a near 
but invisible source, and recognised that we were hearing for the first 
time the famous Alpine jodel in its own native wilds. And we recog- 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



257 



nised, also, that it was that sort of quaint commingling of baritone 
and falsetto which at home we call ' Tyrolese warbling.' 

The jodling (pronounced yodling — emphasis on the 6) continued, 
and was very pleasant and inspiriting to hear. Now the jodler appeared 
— a shepherd boy of sixteen — and in our gladness and gratitude we 
gave him a franc to jodel some more. So he jodeled, and we listened. 




We moved on presently, and he 
generously jodeled us out of 
sight. After about fifteen mi- 
nutes, we came across another 
shepherd boy who was jod- 
ling, and gave him half a franc 
to keep it up. He also jod- 
led us out of sight. After 
that, we found a jodler every 
ten minutes ; we gave the 

THE 'JODLER.' first one eight centSj ^ 

second one six cents, the third one four cents, the fourth one a 
penny, contributed nothing to Nos. 5, 6, 7, and during the remainder of 



258 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



the day hired the rest of the jodlers, at a franc apiece, not to jodel any- 
more. There is somewhat too much of this jodling in the Alps. 

About the middle of the afternoon we passed through a prodigious- 
natural gateway called 
the Felsenthor , formed 
HH by two enormous up- 
right rocks, with a 
third lying across the 
top. There was a 
very attractive little 
hotel close by, but 
our energies were not 
conquered yet, so we 
went on. 

Three hours after- 
ward we came to the 
railway track. It was 
planted straight up 
the mountain with the 
slant of a ladder that 
leans against a house 
and it seemed to us 
that a man would 
need good nerves who 
proposed to travel up 
it or down it either. 

During the latter 
part of the afternoon 
we cooled our roast- 
ing interiors with ice-cold water from clear streams, the only really 
satisfying water we had tasted since we left home, for at the hotels- 
on the Continent they merely give you a tumbler of ice to soak your 
water in, and that only modifies its hotness, doesn't make it cold. 
Water can only be made cold enough for summer comfort by being 
prepared in a refrigerator or a closed ice-pitcher. Europeans say 
ice water impairs digestion. How do they know ? — they never drink- 
any. 




ANOTHER VOCALIST. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



259 



At ten minutes past six we reached the Kaltbad station, where 

there is a spacious hotel with great verandahs which command a ma- 
jestic expanse of lake and mountain scenery. I We were pretty well 

fagged out now, but as we did not wish to miss the Alpine sunrise, we 

got through with our dinner as ^ — _ _/* 

quickly as possible and hurried off k # 

to bed. It was unspeakably com- , : ; _- 

fortable to stretch our weary limbs 

between the cool damp sheets. And 

how we did sleep ! — for there is no 

opiate like Alpine pedestrianism. 
In the morning we both awoke 

and leaped out of bed at the same 

instant and ran and stripped aside 

the window curtains, but we suffered 

a bitter disappointment again: it 

was already half-past three in the 

afternoon. 

We dressed sullenly and in ill 

spirits, each accusing the other of 

over-sleeping. Harris said if we 

had brought the courier along, as 

we ought to have done, we should 

not have missed these sunrises. I 

said he knew very well that one of 

us would have had to sit up and wake the courier; and I added 
that we were having trouble enough to take care of ourselves on this 
climb, without having to take care of a courier besides. 

During breakfast our spirits came up a little, since we found by the 
guide-book that in the hotels on the summit the tourist is not left to 
trust to luck for his sunrise, but is roused betimes by a man who goes 
through the halls with a great Alpine horn, blowing blasts that would 
raise the dead. And there was another consoling thing : the guide- 
book said that up there on the summit the guests did not wait to 
dress much, but seized a red bed-blanket and sailed out arrayed like an 
Indian. This was good ; this would be romantic ; two hundred and 
fifty people grouped on the windy summit, with their hair flying and 




THE FELSENTHOK. 



260 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

their red blankets flapping, in the solemn presence of the snowy 
ranges and the messenger splendours of the coming sun, would be a 
striking and memorable spectacle. So it was good luck, not ill luck, 
that we had missed those other sunrises. 




A VIEW FROM THE STATION. 

We were informed by the guide-book that we were now 3,228 
feet above the level of the lake— therefore full two-thirds of our journey 
had been accomplished. We got away at a quarter past four p.m. ; a 
hundred yards above the hotel the railway divided ; one track went 
straight up the steep hill, the other one turned square off to the right, 
with a very slight grade. We took the latter, and followed it more 
than a mile, turned a rocky corner and came in sight of a handsome new 
hotel. If we had gone on, we should have arrived at the summit, but 
Harris preferred to ask a lot of questions — as usual, of a man who 
didn't know anything — and he told us to go back and follow the other 
route. We did so. We could ill afford this loss of time. 

We climbed and climbed ; and we kept on climbing ; we reached 
about forty summits ; but there was always another one just ahead. 
It came on to rain, and it rained in dead earnest. We were soaked 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



2G1 



through, and it was bitter cold. Next a smoky fog of clouds covered 
the whole region densely, and we took to the railway ties to keep from 
getting lost. Sometimes we slopped along in a narrow path on the 
left-hand side of the track, but by-and-by, when the fog blew aside a 
little and we saw that we were treading the rampart of a precipice, and 
that our left elbows were projecting over a perfectly boundless and 
bottomless vacancy, we gasped and jumped for the ties again. 

The night shut down, dark, and drizzly, and cold. About eight 
in the evening the fog lifted and showed us a well-worn path which 
led up a very steep rise to the left. We took it, and as soon as we had 
got far enough from the railway to render the finding it again an im- 
possibility, the fog shut down on us once more. 




LOST m THE MIST. 

We were in a bleak unsheltered place now, and had to trudge right 
along in order to keep warm, though we rather expected to go over a 
precipice sooner or later. About nine o'clock we made an important 
discovery — that we were not in any path. We groped around a while 
on our hands and knees, but could not find it ; so we sat down in 
the mud and the wet scant grass to wait. We were terrified into this 
by being suddenly confronted with a vast body which showed- itself 



262 



.4 TBAMP ABROAD. 



vaguely for an instant, and in the next instant was smothered m the fog 
again. It was really the hotel we were after, monstrously magnified 
by the fog, but we took it for the face of a precipice and decided not 
to try to claw up it. 

We sat there an hour, with chattering teeth and quivering bodies, 
and quarrelled over all sorts of trifles, but gave most of our attention 
to abusing each other for the stupidity of deserting the railway track. 
We sat with our backs to that precipice, because what little wind 
there was came from that quarter. At some time or other the fog 
thinned a little ; we did not know when, for we were facing the 
empty universe and the thinness could not show ; but at last Harris 




THE RIGI-KULM HOTEL. 



happened to look around, and there stood a huge, dim, spectral hotel 
where the precipice had been. One could faintly discern the windows 
and chimneys, and a dull blur of lights. Our first emotion was deep, 
unutterable gratitude, our next was a foolish rage, born of the suspicion 
,that possibly the hotel had been visible three-quarters of an hour 
while we sat there in those cold puddles quarrelling. 

Yes, it was the Bigi-Kulm hotel — the one that occupies the extreme 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 263 

summit, and whose remote little sparkle of lights we had often seen 
glinting high aloft among the stars from our balcony away down 
yonder in Lucerne. The crusty portier and the crusty clerks gave 
us the surly reception which their kind deal in in prosperous times, 
but by mollifying them with an extra display of obsequiousness and 
-servility we finally got them to show us to the room which our boy 
had engaged for us. 

We got into some dry clothing, and while our supper was pre- 
paring we loafed forsakenly through a couple of vast cavernous drawing- 
rooms, one of which had a stove in it. This stove "was in a corner, 
and densely walled around with people. We could not get near the 
fire, so we moved at large in the arctic spaces, among a multitude of 
people who sat silent, smileless, forlorn, and shivering — thinking what 
fools they were to come, perhaps. There were some Americans, and 
some Germans, but one could see that the great majority were English. 
We lounged into an apartment where there was a great crowd, to see 
what was going on. It was a memento-magazine. The tourists were 
eagerly buying all sorts and styles of paper-cutters, marked ' Souvenir 
of the Rigi,' with handles made of the little curved horn of the osten- 
sible chamois ; there were all manner of wooden goblets and such things, 
similarly marked. I was going to buy a paper-cutter, but I believed I 
could remember the cold comfort of the Rigi-Kulm without it, so I 
smothered the impulse. 

Supper warmed us, and we went immediately to bed ; but first, 
as Mr. Baedeker requests all tourists to call his attention to any errors 
which they may find in his guide-books, I dropped him a line to inform 
him that when he said the foot journey from Waggis to the summit 
was only three hours and a quarter, he missed it by just about 
three days. I had previously informed him of his mistake about the 
distance from Allerheiligen to Oppenau, and had also informed the 
Ordnance Department of the German Government of the same error in 
the Imperial maps. I will add, here, that I never got any answer to 
these letters, or any thanks from either of those sources ; and what is 
still more discourteous, these corrections have not been made, either in 
the maps or the guide-books. But I will write again when I get 
time, for my letters may have miscarried. 

We curled up in the clammy beds, and went to sleep without rock- 



264 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



ing. We were so sodden with fatigue that we never stirred nor turned 
over till the blooming blasts of the Alpine horn aroused us. It may well 
be imagined that we did not lose any time. We snatched on a few odds 
and ends of clothing, cocooned ourselves in the proper red blankets and 
plunged along the halls and out into the whistling wind bare-headed. 
We saw a tall wooden scaffolding on the very peak of the summit, a 
hundred yards away, and made for it. We rushed up the stairs to the 
top of this scaffolding, and stood there, above the vast outlying world r 
with hair flying and ruddy blankets waving and cracking in the 
fierce breeze. 

' Fifteen minutes too late, at least ! ' said Harris, in a vexed voice. 
' The sun is clear above the horizon.' 

'No matter,' I said, 'it is a most magnificent spectacle, and we 
will see it do the rest of its rising, anyway.' 

In a moment we were deeply absorbed in the marvel before us, 
and dead to everything else. The great cloud-barred disk of the sun 
stood just above a limitless expanse of tossing white-caps — so to speak 




WHAT AWAKENED US. 



— a billowy chaos of massy mountain domes and peaks draped in 
imperishable snow, and flooded with an opaline glory of changing and 
dissolving splendours, whilst through rifts in a black cloud-bank above 
the sun, radiating lances of diamond dust shot to the zenith. The 




A SUMMIT SUNRISE. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



267 



cloven valleys of the lower world swam in a tinted mist which veiled 
the ruggedness of their crags and ribs and ragged forests, and turned 
all the forbidding region into a soft and rich and sensuous paradise. 

We could not speak. We could hardly breathe. We could 
only gaze in drunken ecstasy and drink it in. Presently Harris 
exclaimed — 

1 Why, nation, it's going down !' 

Perfectly true. We had missed the morning horn-blow, and slept 
all day. This was stupefying. Harris said, — 

'Look here, the sun isn't the spectacle — it's us — stacked up here 
on top of this gallows, in these idiotic blankets, and two hundred 




PERCHED ALOFT. 



and fifty well-dressed men and women down here gawking up at us and 
not caring a straw whether the sun rises or sets, as long as they've got 
such a ridiculous spectacle as this to set down in their memorandum- 
books. They seem to be laughing their ribs loose, and there's one 
girl there that appears to be going all to pieces. I never saw such a man 
as you before. I think you are the very last possibility in the way of 
an ass.' 



*G8 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

1 What have I done ? ' I answered with heat. 

1 What have you done ? You've got up at half-past seven 
o'clock in the evening to see the sun rise, that's what you've done.' 

1 And have you done any better, I'd like to know ? I always used 
to get up with the lark, till I came under the petrifying influence of 
your turgid intellect.' 

' You used to get up with the lark ! Oh, no doubt ; you'll get up 
with the hangman one of these days. But you ought to be ashamed to 
be jawing here like this in a red blanket, on a forty-foot scaffold on top 
of the Alps. And no end of people down here to boot; this isn't any 
place for an exhibition of temper.' 

And so the customary quarrel went on. When the sun was fairly 
down, we slipped back to the hotel in the charitable gloaming, and 
went to bed again. We had encountered the horn-blower on the 
way, and he had tried to collect compensation, not only for announcing 
the sunset, which we did see, but for the sunrise, which we had totally 
missed, but we said no, we only took our solar rations on the ' European 
plan ' — pay for what you get. He promised to make us hear his horn 
in the morning, if we were alive. 



.4. TRAMP ABROAD. 2G9 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

He kept his word. We heard his horn and instantly got up. It 
was dark and cold and wretched. As I fumbled around for the 
matches, knocking things down with my quaking hands, I wished 
the sun would rise in the middle of the day, when it was warm and 
bright and cheerful, and one wasn't sleepy. We proceeded to dress by 
the gloom of a couple of sickly candles, but we could hardly button 
anything, our hands shook so. I thought of how many happy people 
there were in Europe, Asia, and America, and everywhere, who were 
sleeping peacefully in their beds and did not have to get up and see the 
Rigi sunrise — people who did not appreciate their advantage, as like 
as not, but would get up in the morning wanting more boons of 
Providence. While thinking these thoughts I yawned, in a rather 
ample way, and my upper teeth got hitched on a nail over the door, 
and whilst I was mounting a chair to free myself, Harris drew the 
window curtain and said — 

' Oh, this is luck ! We shan't have to go out at all ; yonder are 
the mountains, in full view.' 

That was glad news, indeed. It made us cheerful right away. One 
could see the grand Alpine masses dimly outlined against the black 
firmament, and one or two faint stars blinking through rifts in the 
night. Fully clothed, and wrapped in blankets, we huddled ourselves 
up, by the window, with lighted pipes, and fell into chat, while we 
waited in exceeding comfort to see how an Alpine sunrise was going 
to look by candle-light. By-and-by a delicate, spiritual sort of 
effulgence spread itself by imperceptible degrees over the loftiest 
altitudes of the snowy wastes — but there the effort seemed to stop. I 
said, presently — 



270 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



i There is a hitch about this sunrise somewhere. It doesn't seem 
to go. What do you reckon is the matter with it ? ' 

' I don't know. It appears to hang fire somewhere. I never saw a 

sunrise act like that be- 
fore. Can it be that the 
hotel is playing anything on 
us?' 

' Of course not. The 
hotel merely has a property 
interest in the sun, it has 
nothing to do with the 
management of it. It is a 
precarious kind of property, 
too ; a succession of total 
eclipses would probably 
ruin this tavern. Now 
what can be the matter 
with this sunrise ? ' 

Harris jumped up and 
said — 

1 I've got it ! I know 
what's the matter with it I 
We've been looking at the 
place where the sun set 
last night ! ' 

' It is perfectly true I 
Why couldn't you have 
thought of that sooner ? 
Now we've lost another 
one. And all through 
your blundering. It was exactly like you to light a pipe and sit down 
to wait for the sun to rise in the west.' 

' It was exactly like me to find out the mistake, too. You never 
would have found it out. I find out all the mistakes.' 

1 You make them all, too, else your most valuable faculty would 
be wasted on you. But don't stop to quarrel now ; maybe we are not 
too late yet.' 




EXCEEDINGLY COMFORTABLE. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



271 



But we were. The sun was well up when we got to the exhibition 
ground. 

On our way up we met the crowd returning — men and women 




111 



Aii 



dressed in all sorts of queer 
costumes, and exhibiting all 
degrees of cold and wretchedness 
in their gaits and countenances. 
A dozen still remained on the 
ground when we reached there, 
huddled together about the 
scaffold with their backs to the 
bitter wind. They had their 
red guide-books open at the 
diagram of the view, and were pain- 
fully picking out the several mountains, 
and trying to impress their names and 
positions on their memories. It was 
one of the saddest sights I ever saw. 
Two sides of this place were guarded by railings, to keep people 
from being blown over the precipices. The view, looking sheer down 
into the broad valley, eastward, from this great elevation — almost a per- 
pendicular mile — was very quaint and curious. Counties, towns, hilly 
ribs and ridges, wide stretches of green meadow great forest tract.-, 



^ o.f.xc'.yj, 




THE SUNBISE. 



272 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

winding streams, a dozen blue lakes, a flock of busy steamboats — we 
saw all this little world in unique circumstantiality of detail — saw it 
just as the birds see it — and all reduced to the smallest of scales and as 
sharply worked out and finished as a steel engraving. The numerous 
toy villages, with tiny spires projecting out of them, were just as the 
children might have left them when done with play the day before j 
the forest tracts were diminished to cushions of moss ; one or two 
big lakes were dwarfed to ponds, the smaller ones to puddles — though 
they did not look like puddles but like blue ear-drops which had fallen 
and lodged in slight depressions, conformable to their shapes, among 
the moss-beds and the smooth levels of dainty green farm-land ; the 
microscopic steamboats glided along as in a city reservoir, taking a 
mighty time to cover the distance between ports which seemed only a 
yard apart ; and the isthmus which separated two lakes looked as if 
one might stretch out on it and lie with both elbows i^i the water, yet 
we knew invisible wagons were toiling across it and finding the distance 
a tedious one. This beautiful miniature world had Exactly the 
appearance of those l relief maps ' which reproduce nature pre^Asely, 
with the heights and depressions and other details graduated to a 
reduced scale, and with the rocks, trees, lakes, etc., coloured after 
nature. 

I believed we could walk down to Waggis or Vitznau in a day, 
but I knew we could go down by rail in about an hour, so I chose the 
latter method. I wanted to see what it was like, anyway. The train 
came along about the middle of the forenoon, and an odd thing it was. 
The locomotive boiler stood on end, and it and the whole locomotive 
were tilted sharply backward. There were two passenger cars, roofed, 
but wide open all around. These cars were not tilted back, but the 
seats were ; this enables the passenger to sit level while going down a 
steep incline. 

There are three railway tracks ; the central one is cogged ; the 
1 lantern wheel ' of the engine grips its way along these cogs, and pulls 
the train up the hill or retards its motion on the down trip. About 
the same speed — three miles an hour — is maintained both ways. 
"Whether going up or down, the locomotive is always at the lower end 
of the train. It pushes, in the one case, braces back in the other., 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



273 




274 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

The passenger rides backwards going up, and faces forward going 
down. 

We got front seats, and while the train moved along about fifty 
yards on level ground, I was not the least frightened ; but now it 
started abruptly down stairs, and I caught my breath. And I, like 
my neighbours, unconsciously held back, all I could, and threw my 
weight to the rear, but of course that did no particular good. I 
had slid den down the balusters when I was a boy, and thought nothing 
of it, but to slide down the balusters in a railway train is a thing to 
make one's flesh creep. Sometimes we had as much as ten yards of 
almost level ground, and this gave us a few full breaths in comfort ; 
but straightway we Avould turn a corner and see a long steep line of 
rails stretching down below us, and the comfort was at an end. One 
expected to see the locomotive pause, or slack up a little, and approach 
this plunge cautiously, but it did nothing of the kind ; it went calmly 
on, and when it reached the jumping-off place it made a sudden bow, 
and went gliding smoothly down stairs, untroubled by the circum- 
stances. 

It was wildly exhilarating to slide along the edge of the precipices 
after this grisly fashion, and look straight down upon that far-off valley 
which I was describing a while ago. 

There was no level ground at the Kaltbad station. ; the rail-bed was 
as steep as a roof; I was curious to see how the stop was going to 
be managed. But it was very simple ; the train came sliding down, 
and when it reached the right spot it just stopped — that was all 
there was ' to it ' — stopped on the steep incline, and when the 
exchange of passengers and baggage had been made, it moved off 
and went sliding down again. The train can be stopped anywhere, 
at a moment's notice. 

There was one curious effect, which I need not take the trouble 
to describe, because I can scissor a description of it out of the railway 
company's advertising pamphlet, and save my ink : — 

* On the whole tour, particularly at the Descent, we undergo an 
optical illusion which often seems to be incredible. All the shrubs, 
fir-trees, stables, houses, etc., seem to be bent in a slanting direction, 
as by an immense pressure of air. They are all standing awry, so 
much awry that the chalets and cottages of the peasants seem to be 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



275 



tumbling down. It is the consequence of the steep inclination of 
the line. Those who are seated in the carriage do not observe that 
they are going down a declivity of 20° to 25° (their seats being 
adapted to this course of proceeding and being bent down at their 




AN OPTICAL ILLUSION. 

backs). They mistake their carriage and its horizontal lines for a 
proper measure of the normal plain, and therefore all the objects 
outside, which really are in a horizontal position, must show a dispro- 
portion of 20° to 25° declivity, in regard to the mountain.' 

By the time one reaches Kaltbad, he has acquired confidence in the 
railway, and he now ceases to try to ease the locomotive by holding 
back. Thenceforward he smokes his pipe in serenity, and gazes out 
upon the magnificent picture below and about him with unfettered 
enjoyment. There is nothing to interrupt the view or the breeze ; it 
is like inspecting the world on the wing. However, to be exact, 
there is one place where the serenity lapses for a while ; this is while 
one is crossing the Schnurrtobel Bridge : a frail structure which swings 
its gossamer frame down through the dizzy air, over a gorge, like 
a vagrant spider strand. 

One has no difficulty in remembering his sins while the train is 
creeping down this bridge ; and he repents of them, too ; though 

t2 



276 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



he sees, when he gets to Vitznau, that he need not have done it — the 
bridge was perfectly safe. 

So ends the eventful trip which we made to the Rigi-Kulm to see 
an Alpine sunrise. 




SEEING THE SUNRISE. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 27U 



CHAPTER XXX. 

An hour's sail brought us to Lucerne again. I judged it best to go 
to bed and rest several days, for I knew that the man who undertakes 
to make the tour of Europe on foot must take care of himself. 

Thinking over my plans, as mapped out, I perceived that they 
did not take in the Furka Pass, the Rhone Glacier, the Finsteraarhorn, 
the Wetterhorn, etc. I immediately examined the guide-book to see 
if these were important, and found they were ; in fact, a pedestrian 
tour of Europe could not be complete without them. Of course that 
decided me at once to see them, for I never allow myself to do things 
by halves, or in a slurring, slipshod way. 

I called in my agent and instructed him to go without delay and 
make a careful examination of these noted places, on foot, and bring 
me back a written report of the result, for insertion in my book. I 
instructed* him to go to Hospenthal as quickly as possible, and make 
his grand start from there; to extend his foot expedition as far as 
the Giesbach fall, and return to me from thence by diligence or mule. 
I told him to take the courier with him. 

He objected to the courier, and with some show of reason, since 
he was about to venture upon new and untried ground ; but I thought 
he might as well learn how to take care of the courier now as later, 
therefore I enforced my point. I said that the trouble, delay, and in- 
convenience of travelling with a courier were balanced by the deep 
respect which a courier's presence commands, and I must insist that 
as much style be thrown into my journeys as possible. 

So the two assumed complete mountaineering costumes and departed. 
A week later they returned, pretty well used up, and my agent handed 
me the following 



280 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Official Beport 
Of a Visit to the Furka Region. By H. Harris, Agent. 
About seven o'clock in the morning, with perfectly fine weather, we 
6tarted from Hospenthal, and arrived at the maison on the Furka in 
a little under quatre hours. The want of variety in the scenery from 
Hospenthal made the kahkahponeeha wearisome ; but let none be dis- 
couraged : no one can fail to be completely recompense'e for his fatigue, 




SOURCE OF THE EHOKE. 

when he sees, for the first time, the monarch of the Oberland, the 
tremendous Finsteraarhorn. A moment before all was dulness, but a 
pas further has placed us on the summit of the Furka ; and exactly 
in front of us, at a hopow of only fifteen miles, this magnificent moun- 
tain lifts its snow-wreathed precipices -into the deep blue sky. The 
inferior mountains on each side of the pass form a sort of frame for the 
picture of their dread lord, and close in the view so completely that 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 281 

no other prominent feature in the Oberland is visible from this bong- 
a-bong ; nothing withdraws the attention from the solitary grandeur ot 
the Finsteraarhorn and the dependent spurs which form the abutments 
of the central peak. 

With the addition of some others, who were also bound for the 
Grimsel, we formed a large xhvloj as we descended the steg which 
winds round the shoulder of a mountain toward the Rhone glacier. We 
soon left the path and took to the ice ; and after wandering amongst 
the crevasses un peu, to admire the wonders of these deep blue caverns, 
and hear the rushing of waters through their subglacial channels, we 
struck out a course towards V autre cote and crossed the glacier success- 
fully, a little above the cave from which the infant Rhone takes its 
first bound from under the grand precipice of ice. Half a mile below 
this we began to climb the flowery side of the Meienwand. One or 
our party started before the rest, but the Hitze was so great that we 
found ilim quite exhausted, and lying at full length in the shade of a 
large Gestein. We sat down with him for a time, for all felt the heat 
exceedingly in the climb up this very steep bolwoggoly, and then we set 
out again together, and arrived at last near the Dead Man's Lake, at the 
foot of the Sidelhorn. This lonely spot, once used for an extempore 
burying-place, after a sanguinary battue between the French and 
Austrians, is the perfection of desolation : there is nothing in sight to 
mark the hand of man, except the line of weather-beaten whitened posts, 
set up to indicate the direction of the past in the oivdawakk of winter. 
Near this point the footpath joins the wider track, which connects the 
Grimsel with the head of the Rhone schnavjp : this has been carefully 
constructed, and leads with a tortuous course among and over les 
pierres, down to the bank of the gloomy little swosh-swosh, which almost 
washes against the walls of the Grimsel Hospice. We arrived a little 
before four o'clock at the end of our day's journey, hot enough to justify 
the step, taken by most of the partie, of plunging into the crystal water 
of the snow-fed lake. 

The next afternoon we started for a walk up the Unteraar glacier, 
with the intention of, at all events, getting as far as the Hutte which 
is used as a sleeping-place by most of those who cross the Strahleck 
Pass to Grindelwald. We got over the tedious collection of stones- 
and debris which covers the pied of the Gletscher, and had walked 



282 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



nearly three hours from the Grimselj when, just as we were thinking of 
crossing over to the right, to climb the cliffs at the foot of the hut, 
■the clouds, which had for some time assumed a threatening appearance, 
sudden!}- dropped, and a huge mass of them, driving towards us from 
die Finsteraarhorn, poured down a deluge of haboolong and hail. Fortu- 




"V. 



A GLACIER TABLE. 



mately, we were not far from a very large glacier table ; it was a huge 
rock balanced on a pedestal of ice high enough to admit of our all 
creeping under it for gowkaraJc. A stream of puckittypukk had furrowed 
.a course for itself in the ice at its base, and we were obliged to stand with 
one Fuss on each side of this, and endeavour to keep ourselves cliaud by 
cutting steps in the steep bank of the pedestal, so as to get a higher place 
for standing on, as the wasser rose rapidly in its trench. A very cold 
bzzzzzzzzeeeee accompanied the storm, and made our position far from 
pleasant ; and presently came a flash of Blitzen, apparently in the 
middle of our little party, with an instantaneous clap of yokkt/, sounding 
like a large gun fired close to our ears : the effect was startling ; but in 
a few seconds our attention was fixed by the roaring echoes of the 
thunder against the tremendous mountains which completely surrounded 
us. This was followed by many more bursts, none of welche, however, 
was so dangerously near ; and after waiting a long demi-houi in our 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 283 

icy prison, we sallied out to walk through a haboolong which, though 
not so heavy as before, was quite enough to give us a thorough soaking 
before our arrival at the Hospice. 

The Grimsel is certainement a wonderful place; situated at the 
bottom of a sort of huge crater, the sides of which are utterly savage 
Gebirge, composed of barren rocks which cannot even support a single 
pine arbre, and afford only scanty food for a herd of gmwkwllolp, it looks 
as if it must be completely begraben in the winter snows. Enormous 
avalanches fall against it every spring, sometimes covering everything 
to the depth of thirty or forty feet; and, in "spite of walls four feet thick, 
and furnished with outside iron shutters, the two men who stay here 
when the voyageurs are snugly quartered in their distant homes can tell 
you that the snow sometimes shakes the house to its foundations. 

Next morning the hogglebumguilup still continued bad, but we 
made up our minds to go on, and make the best of it. Half an hour 
after we started the Regan thickened unpleasantly, and we attempted 
to get shelter under a projecting rock, but being far too nass already to 
make standing at all agreable, we pushed on for the Handeck, consoling 
ourselves with the reflection that from the furious rushing of the river 
Aar at our side, we should at all events see the celebrated Wasserfall 
in grande perfection. Nor were we nappersocket in our expectation ; 
the water was roaring down its leap of 250 feet in a most magnificent 
frenzy, while the trees which cling to its rocky sides swayed to and 
fro in the violence of the hurricane which it brought down with it : 
even the stream, which falls into the main cascade at right angles, and 
toutfois forms a beautiful feature in the scene, was now swollen into a 
raging torrent ; and the violence of this l meeting of the waters,' about 
fifty feet below the frail bridge where we stood, was fearfully grand. 
•While we were looking at it, gUicldicheweise a gleam of sunshine came 
out, and instantly a beautiful rainbow was formed by the spray, and 
hung in mid air suspended over the awful gorge. 

On going into the chalet above the fall, we were informed that 
a Brucke had broken down near Guttanen, and that it would be impos- 
sible to proceed for some time : accordingly we were kept in our drenched 
condition for eine Stunde, when some voyageurs arrived from Meyringen, 
and told us that there had been a trifling accident, aben that we could 
now cross. On arriving at the spot, I was much inclined to suspect 



'281 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



isgoi^ mm kM tne more in tne ±ian- 




that the whole story 
was a ruse to make us 
slowwlc, and drink 
the more in the Han- 



GLACIER OF GRINDELWALD. 



carried away, and 
though there might 
perhaps have been 
some difficulty with 
mules, the gap was 
certainly not larger 
than a mmbglx might 
cross with a very 
slight leap. Near 
Guttanen the haboo- 
long happily ceased, 
and we had time to 
walk ourselves toler- 
ably dry before arriv- 
ing at Reich enbach, 
wo we enjoyed a good 
dine at the Hotel des 
Alpes. 

Next morning we 
walked to Rosenlaui, 
the beau ideal of 
Swiss scenery, where 
we spent the middle 
of the day in an ex- 
cursion to the glacier. 
This was more beau- 
tiful than words can 
describe, for in the 
constant progress of 
the ice it has changed 
the form of its extre- 
mity, and formed a 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 235 

vast cavern, as blue as the sky above, and rippled like a frozen ocean. 
A few steps cut in the whoopjamboreehoo enabled us to walk completely 
under this, and feast our eyes upon one of the loveliest objects in crea- 
tion. The glacier was all around divided by numberless fissures of the 
saine exquisite colour, and the finest wood Erdbeeren were growing in 
abundance but a few yards from the ice. The inn stands in a charmant 
spot close to the cote de la riviere which, lower down, forms the 
Reichenbach fall, and embosomed in the richest of pinewoods, while the 
fine form of the Wellhorn looking down upon it completes the enchanting 
hopple. In the afternoon we walked over the Great Scheideck to 
Grindelwald, stopping to pay a visit to the Upper glacier by the way ; 
but we were again overtaken by bad hogglebumgidlup, and arrived at 
the hotel in solche a state that the landlord's wardrobe was in great 
request. 

The clouds by this time seemed to have done their worst, for a lovely 
day succeeded, which we determined to devote to an ascent of the 
Faulhorn. We left Grindelwald just as a thunderstorm was dying 
away, and we hoped to find guten Wetter up above ; but the rain, 
which had nearly ceased, began again, and we were struck by the 
rapidly increasing froid as we ascended. Two-thirds of the way up 
were completed when the rain was exchanged for gnillic, with which 
the Boden was thickly covered, and before we arrived at the top the 
gnillic and mist became so thick that we could not see one another 
at more than twenty poopoo distance, and it became difficult to pick 
our way over the rough and thickly covered ground. Shivering with 
cold we turned into bed with a double allowance of clothes, and slept 
comfortably while the wind howled autour de la maison : when I awoke, 
the wall and the window looked equally dark, but in another hour I 
found I could just see the form of the latter; so I jumped out of bed, 
and forced it open, though with difficulty, from the frost and the quan- 
tities of gnillic heaped up against it. 

A row of huge icicles hung down from the edge of the roof, and 
anything more wintry than the whole Anblick could not well be 
imagined ; but the sudden appearance of the great mountains in front 
was so startling that I felt no inclination to move towards bed again. 
The snow which had collected upon la fenetre had increased the 
Finsterniss oder der DunJcelheit, so that wheD I looked out I was sur- 



286 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



prised to find that the daylight was considerable, and that the balragooma 
would evidently rise before long. Only the brightest of Us etoiies were 
still shining ; the sky was cloudless overhead, though small curling 
mists lay thousands of feet below us in the valleys, wreathed around 
the feet of the mountains, and adding to the splendour of their lofty 
summits. We were soon dressed and out of the house, watching the 
gradual approach of dawn, thoroughly absorbed in the first near view 
of the Oberland giants, which broke upon us unexpectedly after the 
intense obscurity of the evening before. ' Kabaugwakho songwashee 
Kum Wetterhorn snawpo!' cried some one, as that grand summit 
gleamed with the first rose of dawn : and in a few moments the double 
crest of the Schreckhorn followed its example ; peak after peak seemed 
warmed with life, the Jungfrau blushed even more beautifully than her 




DAWN ON THE MOUNTAINS. 



neighbours, and soon, from the "Wetterhorn in the East to the Wildstrubel 
in the West, a long row of fires glowed upon mighty altars, truly worthy 
of the gods. The wlgw was very severe; our sleeping place could 
hardly be distinguee from the snow around it, which had fallen to tbe 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 287 

depth of ajlirk during the past evening, and we heartily enjoyed a rough 
scramble en has to the Giesbach falls, where we soon found a warm 
climate. At noon the day before at Grindelwald the thermometer 
could not have stood at less than 100° Fahr. in the sun ; and in the 
evening, judging from the icicles formed, and the state of the windows r 
there must have been at least twelve dingblatter of frost, thus giving a 
change of 80° during a few hours. 

I said — 

' You have done well, Harris ; this report is concise, compact, well 
expressed; the language is crisp, the descriptions are vivid and not 
needlessly elaborated; your report goes straight to the point, attends 
strictly to business, and doesn't fool around. It is in many ways an 
excellent document. But it has a fault — it is too learned, it is much 
too learned. What is " dingblatter " ? ' 

( Dingblatter is a Fiji word meaning " degrees." ' 

1 You knew the English of it, then ? ' 

' Oh yes.' 

< What is "gnillic"V 

1 That is the Esquimaux term for " snow." ■ 
* So you knew the English for that too ? * 
'Why, certainly.' 

' What does " mmbglx " stand for ? ' 
1 That is Zulu for " pedestrian." ' 

1 " While the form of the Wellhorn looking down upon it completes 
the enchanting ' hopple.' 1 " What is " bopple " ? ' 
1 " Picture." It's Choctaw.' 
'. What is schnawp " ? ' 
1 " Valley." That is Choctaw also.' 

< What is " bolwoggohj " 1 ' 

1 That is Chinese for " hill." ' 

1 KahkaaponeeJca ? ' 

' " Ascent." Choctaw.' 

c " But we were again overtaken by bad c hogglebumgullup? " What 
does hogglebumgullup mean ? ' 

' That is Chinese for " weather." ' 

'Is hogglebumgullup better than the English word? Is it anv 
more descriptive ? ' 



1288 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

1 No, it means just the same.' 

1 And dingblatter, and gnillic, — and bopple, and schnawp, — are they 
better than the English words ? ' 

' No, they mean just what the English ones do.' 

1 Then why do you use them ? Why have you used all this Chinese 
and Choctaw and Zulu rubbish ? ' 

' Because I didn't know any French but two or three words, and 1 
didn't know any Latin or Greek at all.' 

' That is nothing. Why should you want to use foreign words, 
anyhow ? ' 

' To adorn my page. They all do it.' 

< Who is " all " ? ' 

I Everybody. Everybody that writes elegantly. Anybody has a 
right to that wants to.' 

I I think you are mistaken.' I then proceeded in the following 
Ecathing manner: — 'When really learned men write books for other 
learned men to read, they are justified in using as many learned words 
as they please — their audience will understand them ; but a man who 
writes a book for the general public to read is not justified in disfiguring 
his pages with untranslated foreign expressions. It is an insolence 
toward the majority of the purchasers, for it is a very frank and im- 
pudent way of saying, " Get the translations made yourself if you 
want them ; this book is not written for the ignorant classes." There 
are men who know a foreign language so well, and have used it so 
long in their daily life, that they seem to discharge whole volleys of it 
into their English writings unconsciously, and so they omit to translate, 
as much as half the time. That is a great cruelty to nine out of ten 
of the man's readers. What is the excuse for this? The writer would 
Bay he only uses the foreign language where the delicacy of his point 
cannot be conveyed in English. Very well, then he writes his best 
things for the tenth man, and he ought to warn the other nine not to 
buy his book. However, the excuse he offers is at least an excuse ; 
but there is another set of men who are like you : they know a word 
heie and there, of a foreign language, or a few beggarly little three-word 
phrases, filched from the back of the Dictionary, and these they are con- 
tinually peppering into their literature, with a pretence of knowing 
that language, — what excuse can they offer ? The foreign words and 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



289 



phrases which they use have their exact equivalents in a nobler language, 
— English ; yet they think they " adorn their page " when they say 
Strasse for street, and Balinhof Tor railway-station, and so on, — flaunting 
these fluttering rags of poverty in the reader's face, and imagining he 
will be ass enough to take them for the sign of untold riches held in 
reserve. I will let your " learning " remain in your report ; you have 
as much right, I suppose, to " adorn your page" with Zulu and Chinese 
and Choctaw rubbish, as others of your sort have to adorn theirs with 
insolent odds and ends smouched from half-a-dozen learned tongues 
whose a-b abs they don't even know.' 

When the musing spider steps upon the red-hot shovel, he first 
exhibits a wild surprise, then he shrivels up. Similar was the effect 
of these blistering words upon the tranquil and unsuspecting Agent. 
I can be dreadfully rough on a person when the mood takes me. 




A 'BEST. 



2:0 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

We now prepared for a considerable walk — from Lucerne to Interlaken,. 
over the Briinig Pass. But at the last moment the weather was so 
good that I changed my mind and hired a four-horse carriage. It was 
a huge vehicle, roomy, as easy in its motion as a palanquin, and exceed- 
ingly comfortable. 

We got away pretty early in the morning, after a hot breakfast, and 
went bowling along over a hard, smooth road, through the summer 
loveliness of Switzerland, with near and distant lakes and mountains 
before and about us for the entertainment of the eye, and the music 
of multitudinous birds to charm the ear. Sometimes there was only 
the width of the road between the imposing precipices on the right 
and the clear cool water on the left with its shoals of uncatchable fishes 
skimming about through the bars of sun and shadow ; and sometimes. 
in place of the precipices, the grassy land stretched away, in an appar- 
ently endless upward slant, and was dotted everywhere with snug little 
chalets, the peculiarly captivating cottage of Switzerland. 

The ordinary chalet turns a broad, honest gable end to the road,, 
and its ample roof hovers over the home in a protecting, caressing 
way, projecting its sheltering eaves far outward. The quaint windows- 
are filled with little panes, and garnished with white muslin curtains, 
and brightened with boxes of blooming flowers. Across the front of the 
house, and up the spreading eaves, and along the fanciful railings of 
the shallow porch, are elaborate carvings — wreaths, fruits, arabesques, 
verses from Scripture, names, dates, etc. The building is wholly of 
wood, reddish brown in tint, a very pleasing colour. It generally has 
vines climbing over it. Set such a house against the fresh green of the 
hillside, and it looks ever so cosy and inviting and picturesque, and is 
a decidedly graceful addition to the landscape. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



291 



One does not find out what a hold the chalet has taken upon him 
until he presently comes upon a new house — a house which is aping 
the town fashions of Germany and France, a prim, hideous, straight- 
up-and-down thing, plastered all over on the outside to look like stone, 
and altogether so stiff, and formal, and ugly, and forbidding, and so out 
of tune with the gracious landscape, and so deaf and dumb and dead 
to the poetry of its surroundings, that it suggests an undertaker at a 
picnic, a corpse at a wedding, a puritan in Paradise. 

In the course of the morning we passed the spot where Pontius 
Pilate is said to have thrown himself into the lake. The legend goes 
that after the Crucifixion his conscience troubled him and he fled from 
Jerusalem and wandered about the earth, weary of life and a prey to 




NEW AND OLD STYLE. 



tortures of the mind. Eventually he hid himself away, on the heights 
of Mount Pilatus, and dwelt alone among the clouds and crags for years ; 
but rest and peace were still denied him, so he finally put an end to his 
misery by drowning himself. 

Presently we passed the place where a man of better odour was 
born. This was the children's friend Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas. 
There are some unaccountable reputations in the world. This saint's is 
an instance. He has ranked for ages as the peculiar friend of children, 
yet it appears he was not much of a friend to his own. He had ten 
of them, and when fifty years old he left them, and sought out as dismal 
a refuge from the world as possible and became a hermit in order that 

v 2 



L'92 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



he might reflect upon pious themes without being disturbed by the 
joyous and other noises from the nursery, doubtless. 

Judging by 
Pilate and St. 
Nicholas, there 
exists no rule for 
the construction 
of hermits : they 
seem made out of 
all kinds of ma- 
terial. But Pi- 
late attended to 
the matter of ex- 
piating his sin 
while he was 
alive, whereas St. 
Nicholas will pro- 
bably have to go 
on climbing down 
sooty chimneys, 
Christmas Eve, 
for ever, and conferring kindness on 
other people's children, to make up 
for deserting his own. His bones 
are kept in a church in a village 
(Sachseln), which we visited, and 
are naturally held in great rever- 
ence. His portrait is common in 
the farmhouses of the region, but is 
believed by many to be but an in- 
different likeness. During his her- 
mit life, according to the legend, he 
st. Nicholas the hekmit. partook of the bread and wine of 
the communion once a month, but all the rest of the month he fasted. 
A constant marvel with us, as we sped along the bases of the steep 
mountains, on this journey, was, not that avalanches occur, but that 
they are not occurring all the time. One does not understand why 




A TRAMP ABROAD. 



203 



rocks and landslides do not plunge down these declivities daily. A land- 
slip occurred three quarters of a century ago, on the route from Arth 
to Brunnen, which 
was a formidable 
thing. A mass of con- 
glomerate two miles 
long, a thousand feet 
broad, and a hundred 
feet thick, broke away 
from a cliff three thou- 
sand feet high and 
hurled itself into the 
valley below, burying 
four villages and five 
hundred people, as in 
a grave. 

We had such a 
beautiful day, and such 
endless pictures of 
limpid lakes, and green 
hills and valleys, and 
majestic mountains, 
and milky cataracts 
dancing down the 
steeps and gleaming in 
the sun, that we could 
not help feeling sweet 
toward all the world ; 
so we tried to drink 
all the milk, and eat 
all the grapes and apri- 
cots and berries, and 
buy all the bouquets 
of wild flowers which 
the little peasant boys 
and girls offered for sale ; but we had to retire from this contract, for 
it was too heavy. At short distances — and they were entirely too 




A LANDSLIDE. 



m 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



short — all along the road, were groups of neat and comely children, 
with their wares nicely and temptingly set forth in the grass under the 




GOLDAU VALLEY BEFORE AND AFTER THE LANDSLIDE. 

shade trees, and as soon as we approached they swarmed into the 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 295 

road, holding out their baskets and milk bottles, and ran beside the 
carriage, barefoot and bareheaded, and importuned us to buy. They 
seldom desisted early, but continued to run and insist — beside the wag- 
gon while they could, and behind it until they lost breath. Then they 
turned and chased a returning carriage back to their trading post again. 
After several hours of this, without any intermission, it becomes, almost 
annoying. I do not know what we should have done without the 
returning carriages to draw off the pursuit. However, there were 
plenty of these, loaded with dusty tourists and piled high with luggage. 
Indeed, from Lucerne to Interlaken we had the spectacle, among other 
scenery, of an unbroken procession of fruit pedlars and tourist 
carriages. 

Our talk was mostly anticipatory of what we should see on the 
down grade of the Briinig, by-and-by, after we should pass the summit. 
All our friends in Lucerne had said that to look down upon Meiringen, 
and the rushing blue-gray river Aar, and the broad level green valley; 
and across at the mighty Alpine precipices that rise straight up to the 
clouds out of that valley ; and up at the microscopic chalets perched 
upon the dizzy eaves of those precipices and winking dimly and fitfully 
through the drifting veil of vapour ; and still up and up, at the superb 
Oltschibach and the other beautiful cascades that leap from those rugged 
heights, robed in powdery spray, ruffled with foam, and girdled with 
rainbows — to look upon these things, they said, was to look upon the 
last possibility of the sublime and the enchanting. Therefore, as I say, 
we talked mainly of these coming wonders ; if we were conscious of 
any impatience, it was to get there in favourable season ; if we felt 
any anxiety, it was that the day might remain perfect, and enable us to 
see thos(; marvels at their best. 

As we approached the Kaiserstuhl, a part of the harness gave way. 
We were in distress for a moment, but only a moment. It was the 
fore-and-aft gear that was broken — the thing that leads aft from the 
forward part of the horse and is made fast to the thing that pulls the 
waggon. In America this would have been a heavy leathern strap ; 
but all over the Continent it is nothing but apiece of rope the size of 
your little finger — clothes-line is what it is. Cabs use it, private 
carriages, freight carts and waggons, all sorts of vehicles have it. In 
Munich I afterwards saw it used on a long waggon laden with fifty- 



296 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



four half-barrels of beer; I had before noticed that the cabs in Heidel- 
berg used it; — not new rope, but rope that had been in use since 
Abraham's time — and I had felt nervous, sometimes, behind it, when 
the cab was tearing down a hill. But I had long been accustomed to 
it now, and had even become afraid of the leather strap which belonged 
in its place. Our driver got a fresh piece of clothes-line out of his 
locker and repaired the break in two minutes. 

So much for one European fashion. Every country has its own 




THE WAY THEY DO IT. 

ways. It may interest the reader to know how they ' put horses to * 
on the Continent. The man stands up the horses on each side of the 
thing that projects from the front end of the waggon, and then throAvs 
the tangled mass of gear on top of the horses, and passes the thing that 
goes forward through a ring, and hauls it aft, and passes the other 
thing through the other ring and hauls it aft on the other side of the 
other horse, opposite to the first one, after crossing them and bringing 
the loose end back, and then buckles the other thing underneath the 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



297 



horse, and takes another thing and wraps it around the thing I spoke of 

before, and puts another thing over each horse's head, with broad 

flappers to it to keep the dust out of his eyes, and puts the iron thing 

in his mouth for him to grit his teeth on, up hill, and brings the 

ends of these things aft over his back, after buckling another one around 

under his neck to hold -his head up, and hitching, another thing on a 

thing that goes over his shoulders to keep his head up when he is 

climbing a hill, and then 

takes the slack of the 

thing which I mentioned 

a while ago, and fetchc s 

it aft and makes it fast to 

the thing that pulls the 

w^aggon, and hands the 

other things up to the 

driver to steer with. I 

never have buckled up a 

horse myself, but I do 

not think we do it that 

way. 

We had four very 
handsome horses, and 
the driver was very proud 
of his turn-out. He 
would bowl along on a 
reasonable trot, on the 
highway, but when he 
entered a village he did 
it on a furious run, and 
accompanied it with a 
frenzy of ceaseless whip 
crackings that sounded 
like volleys of musketry. He tore through the narrow streets and 
around the sharp curves like a moving earthquake, showering hia 
volleys as he went, and before him swept a continuous tidal wave of 
scampering children, ducks, cats, and mothers clasping babies which 
they had snatched out of the way of the coming destruction; and as 




OUR GALLANT DRIVER. 



298 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

this living wave washed aside, along the walls, its elements, being 
safe, forgot their fears and turned their admiring gaze upon that gallant 
driver till he thundered around the next curve and was lost to sight. 

He was a great man to those villagers, .with his gaudy clothes and 
his terrific ways. "Whenever he stopped to have his cattle watered 
and fed with loaves of bread, the villagers stood around admiring him 
while he swaggered about, the little boys gazed up at his face with 
humble homage, and the landlord brought out foaming mugs of beer 
and conversed proudly with him while he drank. Then he mounted 
his lofty box, swung his explosive whip, and away he went again, like 
a storm. I had not seen anything like this before since I was a boy, 
and the stage used To flourish through the village with the dust flying 
and the horn tooting. 

When Ave reached the base of the Kaiserstuhl, we took two more 
horses ; we had to toil along with difficulty for an hour and a half or 
two hours, for the ascent was not very gradual, but when we passed 
the backbone and approached the station, the driver surpassed all his 
previous efforts in the way of rush and clatter. He could not have 
six horses all the time, so he made the most of his chance while he 
had it. 

Up to this point we had been in the heart of the William Tell 
region. The hero is not forgotten, by any means, or held in doubtful 
veneration. His wooden image, with his bow drawn, above the doors 
of taverns, was a frequent feature of the scenery. 

About noon we arrived at the foot of the Briinig pass, and made 
a two-hour stop at the village hotel, another of those clean, pretty, and 
thoroughly well-kept inns which are such an astonishment to people 
who are accustomed to hotels of a dismally different pattern in remote 
country towns. There was a lake here, in the lap of the great moun- 
tains, the green slopes that rose toward the lower crags were graced 
with scattered Swiss cottages nestling among miniature farms and 
gardens, and from out a leafy ambuscade on the upper heights tumbled 
a brawling cataract. 

Carriage after carriage, laden with tourists and trunks, arrived, and 
the quiet hotel was soon populous. We were early at the table d'hote, 
and saw the people all come in. There were twenty-five, perhaps. 
They were of various nationalities, but we were the only Americans. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 299 

Next to me sat an English bride, and next to her sat her new husband 




THE MOUNTAIN PASS. 

whom she called 'Neddy/ though he was big enough and stalwan 



130 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



enough to be entitled to his full name. They had a pretty little 
lovers' quarrel over what wine they should have. Neddy was for obey- 
ing the guide-book and taking the wine of the country ; but the bride 
said — 

' What, that nahsty stuff ! ' 
' It isn't nahsty, Pet, it's quite good.' 
' It is nahsty.' 
' No, it isn't nahsty.' 

4 It's oful nahsty, Neddy, and I shahn't drink it.' 
Then the question was, what she must have. She said he knew 

very well that she never 
drank anything but cham- 
pagne. She added — 

1 You know very well 
papa always has champagne 
on his table, and I've always 
been used to it.' 

Neddy made a playful 
pretence of being distressed 
about the expense, and this 
amused her so much that 
she nearly exhausted her- 
self* with laughter, and this 
pleased liim so much that 
he repeated his jest a couple 
of times, and added new and 
killing varieties to it. When 
the bride finally recovered, 
she gave Neddy a love-box 
on the arm with her fan, and said with arch severity — 

' Well, you would have me — nothing else would do — so you'll have 
to make the best of a bad bargain. Do order the champagne, I'm oful 
dry.' 

So with a mock groan which made her laugh again, Neddy ordered 
the champagne. 

The fact that this young woman had never moistened the selvedge 
edge of her soul with a less plebeian tipple than champagne had a marked 




' I'M OJb'UL DRY. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



301 



and subduing effect upon Harris. He believed she belonged to the 
royal family. But I had rny doubts. 

We heard two or three different languages spoken by people at the 
table, and guessed out the nationalities of most of the guests to our 
satisfaction, but we failed with an elderly gentleman and his wife and 
a young girl who sat opposite us, 
and with a gentleman of about 
thirty-five who sat three seats be- 
yond Harris. We did not hear any 
of these speak. But finally the 
last-named gentleman left while we 
were not noticing, but we looked 
up as he reached the far end of 
the table. He stopped there a 
moment, and made his toilet with 
a pocket comb. So he was a 
German ; or else he had lived in 
German hotels long enough to 
catch the fashion. When the 
elderly couple and the young girl 
rose to leave they bowed re- 
spectfully to us. So they were 
Germans, too. This national 
custom is worth six of the other 
one, for export. 

After dinner we talked with 
several Englishmen, and they inflamed our desire, to a hotter degree 
than ever, to see the sights of Meiringen from the heights of the 
Briinig pass. They said the view was marvellous, and that one who 
had seen it once could never forget it. They also spoke of the romantic 
nature of the road over the pass, and how in one place it had been cut 
through a flank of the solid rock, in such a way that the mountain 
overhung the tourist as he passed by ; and they furthermore said that 
the sharp turns in the road and the abruptness of the descent would 
afford us a thrilling experience, for we should go down in a flying gallop 
and seem to be spinning around the rings of a whirlwind, like a drop 
of whisky descending the spirals of a corkscrew. I got all the informa- 




IT S THE FASHION. 



302 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



tion out of these gentlemen that we could need ; and then, to make 
everything complete, I asked them if a body could get hold of a little 

fruit and milk here and there, in case 
of necessity. They threw up their 
hands in speechless intimation that the 
road was simply paved with refresh- 
ment pedlars. We were impatient to 
get away now, and the rest of our two- 
hour stop rather dragged. But finally 
the set time arrived and we began the 
ascent. Indeed, it was a wonderful 
road. It was smooth, and compact, 
and clean, and the side next the preci- 
pices was guarded 
all along by dressed 
stone posts about 
three feet high, 
placed at short dis- 
tances apart. The 
road could not have 
been better built if 
Napoleon the First 
had built it. He 
seems to have been 
the introducer of 
the sort of roads 
which Europe now 
uses. All literature 
which describes life 
as it existed in Eng- 
and, France, and 
Germany up to the 
close of the last cen- 
tury is filled with pictures of coaches and carriages wallowing through 
these three countries in mud and slush half- wheel deep; but after 
Napoleon had floundered through a conquered kingdom he generally 
arranged things so that the rest of the world could follow dry shod. 




WHAT WE EXPECTED. 







-.A- 



« 



u&gg 






Ji'l 



^ 









&^ 









,c" 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 305 

We went on climbing, higher and higher, and curving hither and 
thither, in the shade of noble woods, and with a rich variety and profu- 
sion of wild flowers all about us ; and glimpses of rounded grassy back- 
bones below us occupied by trim chalets and nibbling sheep, and other 
glimpses of far lower altitudes, where distance diminished the chalets 
to toys and obliterated the sheep altogether ; and every now and then 
some ermined monarch of the Alps swung magnificently into view for 
a moment, then drifted past an intervening spur and disappeared again. 

It was an intoxicating trip, altogether; the exceeding sense of 
satisfaction that follows a good dinner added largely to the enjoyment; 
the having something especial to look forward to, and muse about, like 
the approaching grandeurs of Meiringen, sharpened the zest. Smoking 
was never so good before, solid comfort was never solider ; we lay 
back against the thick cushions, silent, meditative, steeped in felicity. 
•***■*■*** 

I rubbed nry eyes, opened them, and started. I had been dreaming 
I was at sea, and it was a thrilling surprise to wake up and find land all 
around me. It took me a couple of seconds to ' come to,' as you may 
say ; then I took in the situation. The horses were drinking at a 
trough in the edge oi a town, the driver was taking beer, Harris 
was snoring at my side; the courier, with folded arms and bowed 
head, was sleeping on the box ; two dozen barefooted and bareheaded 
children were gathered about the carriage, with their hands crossed 
behind, gazing up with serious and innocent admiration at the dozing 
tourists baking there in the sun. Several small girls held night-capped 
babies nearly as big as themselves in their arms, and even these fat 
babies seemed to take a sort of sluggish interest in us. 

We had slept an hour and a half and missed all the scenery ! I 
did not need anybody to tell me that. If I had been a girl, I could 
have cursed for vexation. As it Avas, I woke up the agent and gave 
him a piece of my mind. Instead of being humiliated, he only up- 
braided me for being so wanting in vigilance. He said he had expected 
to improve his mind by coming to Europe, but a man might travel to 
the ends of the earth with me and never see anything, for I was 
manifestly endowed with the very genius of ill-luck. He even tried to 
.get up some emotion about that poor courier, who never got a chance 
to see anything, on account of my heedlessness. But when I thought 

x 



306 



A TBAJSIP ABROAD. 



I had borne about enough of this kind of talk, I threatened to make 
Harris tramp back to the summit and make a report on that sceneiy, 
and this suggestion spiked his battery. 

We drove sullenly through Brienz, dead to the seductions of its 
bewildering array of Swiss carvings and the clamorous ^oo-hooing of 
its cuckoo clocks, and had not entirely recovered our spirits when we 
rattled across the bridge over the rushing blue river and entered the 
pretty town of Interlaken. It w r as just about sunset, and we had 
made the trip from Lucerne in ten hours* 




"W&mi 



THE TOURISTS. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 307 



CHAPTER XXXII, 

We located ourselves at the Jungfrau Hotel, one of those huge estab- 
lishments which the needs of modern travel have created in every 
attractive spot on the Continent. There was a great gathering at 
dinner, and as usual one heard all sorts of languages. 

The table d'hote was served by waitresses dressed in the quaint 
and comely costume of the Swiss peasants. This consists of a simple 
gros de laine, trimmed with ashes of roses, with overskirt of sacrebleu 
ventre saint gris, cut bias on the off side, with facings of petit polonaise 
and narrow insertions of pate de foie gras backstitched to the mise- 
en-scene in the form of a jeu d'esprit. It gives to the wearer a 
singularly piquant and alluring aspect. 

One of these waitresses, a woman of forty, had side whiskers 
reaching half way down her jaw. They were two ringers broad, dark 
in colour, pretty thick, and the hairs were an inch long. One sees 
many women on the Continent with quite conspicuous moustaches, but 
this was the only woman I saw who had reached the dignity of 
whiskers. 

After dinner the guests of both sexes distributed themselves about 
the front porches and the ornamental grounds belonging to the hotel, 
to enjoy the cool air ; but as the twilight deepened towards darkness, 
they gathered themselves together in that saddest and solemnest and 
most constrained of all places, the great blank drawing-room which 
is a chief feature of all Continental summer hotels. There they 
grouped themselves about, in couples and threes, and mumbled in 
bated voices, and looked timid and homeless and forlorn. 

There was a small piano in this room, a clattery, wheezy, asthmatic 
thing, certainly the very worst miscarriage in the way of a piano that 
the world has seen. In turn, five or six dejected and home-sick ladies 
approached it doubtingly, gave it a single inquiring thump, and retired 

x2 



308 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



with the lockjaw. But the boss of that instrument was to come, 
nevertheless; and from my own country — from Ark an saw. . She was 
a brand-new bride, innocent, girlish, happy in herself and her grave 
and worshipping stripling of a husband ; she was about eighteen, 
just out of school, free from affectations, unconscious of that passionless 
multitude around her ; and the very first time she smote that old 
wreck one recognised that it had met its destiny. Her stripling brought 

an armful of aged sheet 
music from their room — 
for this bride went ' heeled,' 
as you might say — and bent 
himself lovingly over and 
got ready to turn the pages. 
The bride fetched a 
swoop with her fingers from 
one end of the key-board to 
the other, just to get her 
bearings, as it were, and 
you could see the con- 
gregation set their teeth 
with the agony of it. Then, 
without any more prelimin- 
aries, she turned on all the 
the youa'g bride, horrors of the 'Battle of 

Prague,' that venerable shivaree, and waded chin-deep in the blood 
of the slain. She made a fair and honourable average of two false 
notes in every five, but her soul was in arms and she never stopped to 
correct. The audience stood it with pretty fair grit for a while, but 
when the cannonade waxed hotter and fiercer, and the discord-average 
rose to four in five, the procession began to move. A few stragglers 
held their ground ten minutes longer, but when the girl began to 
wring the true inwardness out of the ' cries of the wounded,' they 
struck their colours and retired in a kind of panic. 

There never was a completer victory ; I was the only non-com- 
batant left on the field. I would not have deserted my country- 
woman anyhow, but indeed I had no desires in that direction. 
None of us like mediocrity, but we all reverence perfection. This 




A TRAMP ABROAD. 



309 



girl's music was perfection in its way ; it was the worst music that 
had ever been achieved on our planet by a mere human being. 

I moved up close, and never lost a strain. When she got through, 
I asked her to play it again. She did it with a pleased alacrity and a 
heightened enthusiasm. She made it all discords, this time. She got 
an amount of anguish into the cries of the wounded that shed a new 
light on human suffering. She was on the war-path all the evening. 
All the time, crowds of people pothered on the porches and pressed 




•IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY. 

their noses against the windows to look and marvel, but the bravest 
never ventured in. The bride went off satisfied and happy with her 
young fellow, when her appetite was finally gorged, and the tourists 
swarmed in again. 

What a change has come over Switzerland, and in fact all Europe, 
during this century ! Seventy or eighty years ago Napoleon was 
the only man in Europe who could really be called a traveller ; he was 
the only man who had devoted his attention to it and taken a powerful 



310 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



interest in it ; he was the only man who had travelled extensively ; 
but now everybody goes everywhere ; and Switzerland, and many 
other regions which were unvisited and unknown remotenesses a 
hundred years ago, are in our days a buzzing hive of restless strangers 
every summer. But I digress. 

In the morning, when we looked out of our windows, we saw a 
wonderful sight. Across the valley, and apparently quite neigh- 
bourly and close at hand, the giant form of the Jungfrau rose cold 
and white into the clear sky, beyond a gateway in the nearer highlands. 
It reminded me, somehow, of one of those colossal billows which 
swell suddenly up beside one's ship, at sea, sometimes, with its crest 
and shoulders snowy white, and the rest of its noble proportions streaked 
downward with creamy foam. 

I took out my sketch-book and made a little picture of the 
Jungfrau, merely to get the shape. 

I do not regard this as one of my finished works, in fact I do not 
rank it among my Works at all; it is only a study; it is hardly 
more than what one might call a sketch. Other artists have done me 
the grace to admire it ; but I am severe in my judgments of my own 
pictures, and this one does not move me. 

It was hard to believe that that lofty wooded rampart on the left 
which so overtops the Jungfrau was not actually the higher of the 
j&filte^ two, but it was not, of course. It is only 2,000 




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A TRAMP ABROAD. 313 

or 3,000 feet high, and of course has no snow upon it in summer, 
whereas the Jungfrau is not much short of 14,000 feet high, and there- 
fore that lowest verge of snow — on her side, which seems nearly down 
to the valley level — is really about 7,000 feet higher up in the air than 
the summit of that wooded rampart. It is the distance that makes the 
deception. The wooded height is but four or five miles removed from 
us, but the Jungfrau is four or five times that distance away. 

Walking down the street of shops, in the forenoon, I was attracted 
by a large picture, carved, frame and all, from a single block of 
chocolate- coloured wood. There are people who know everything. 
Some cf these had told us that continental shopkeepers always raise 
their prices on English and Americans. Many people had told us it 
was expensive to buy things through a courier, whereas I had supposed 
it was just the reverse. When I saw this picture I conjectured that it 
was worth more than the friend I proposed to buy it for would like to 
pay, but still it was worth while to inquire ; so I told the courier to 
step in and ask the price, as if he wanted it for himself; I told him 
not to speak in English, and above all not to reveal the fact that he 
was a courier. Then I moved on a few yards, and waited. 

The courier came presently and reported the price. I said to 
myself, ' It is a hundred francs too much,' and so dismissed the matter 
from my mind. But in the afternoon I was passing that place with 
Harris, and the picture attracted me again. We stepped in to see 
how much higher broken German would raise the price. The shop- 
woman named a figure just a hundred francs lower than the courier had 
named. This was a pleasant surprise. I said I would take it. After 
[ had given directions as to where it was to be shipped, the shopwoman 
said, appealingly — 

1 If you please, do not let your courier know you bought it.' 

This was an unexpected remark. I said — 

' What makes you think I have a courier ? ' 

* Ah, that is very simple ; he told me himself.' 

' He was very thoughtful. But tell me — why did you charge him 
more than you are charging me ? ' 

' That is very simple, also : I do not have to pay you a percentage.' 

' Oh, I begin to see. You would have had to pay the courier a per- 
centage ? ' 



314 A Til A. IIP ABROAD. 

'Undoubtedly. The courier always has his percentage. In this 
case it would have been a hundred francs. 

' Then the tradesman does not pay a part of it — the purchaser pays 
all of it?' 

4 There are occasions when the tradesman and the courier agree 
upon a price which is twice or thrice the value of the article, then 
the two divide, and both get a percentage.' 

'I see. But it seems to me that the purchaser does all the paying, 
even then.' 

' Oh, to be sure ! It goes without saying.' 

' But I have bought this picture myself; therefore why shouldn't 
the courier know it ? ' 

The woman exclaimed, in distress — 

' Ah, indeed it would take all my little profit ! He would come 
and demand his hundred francs, and I should have to pay.' 

1 He has not done the buying. You could refuse.' 

' I could not dare to refuse. He would never bring travellers here 
again. More than that, he would denounce me to the other couriers, 
they would divert custom from me, and my business would be 
injured.' 

I went away in a thoughtful frame of mind. I began to see why a 
courier could afford to work for fifty-five dollars a month and his fares. 
A month or two later I was able to understand why a courier did not 
have to pay any board and lodging, and why my hotel bills were 
always larger when I had him with me than when I left him behind, 
somewhere, for a few days. 

Another thing was also explained, now, apparently. In one town 
1 had taken the courier to the bank to do the translating when I drew 
some money. I had sat in the reading-room till the transaction was 
finished. Then a clerk had brought the money to me in person, 
and had been exceedingly polite, even going so far as to precede me 
to the door and hold it open for me and bow me out as if I had 
been a distinguished personage. It was a new experience. Exchange 
had been in my favour ever since I had been in Europe, but just 
that one time. I got simply the face of my draft, and no extra francs, 
whereas I had expected to get quite a number of them. This was the 
lirst time 1 had ever used the courier at a bank. I had suspected 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



317 



•something then, and as long as he remained with me afterwards I 
managed bank matters by myself. 

Still, if I felt that I could afford the tax, I would never travel 
without a courier, for a good courier is a convenience whose value 
cannot be estimated in dollars and cents. "Without him, travel is a 
bitter harassment, a purgatory of little exasperating annoyances, a 
ceaseless and pitiless punishment — I mean to an irascible man who 
has no business capacity and is confused by details. 

Without a courier, travel hasn't a ray of pleasure in it, anywhere ; 




WITHOUT A COURIER. 

but with him it is a continuous and unruffled delight. He is always 
at hand, never has to be sent for ; if your bell is not answered promptly 
— and it seldom is — you have only to open the door and speak, the 
courier will hear, and he will have the order attended to or raise an 
insurrection. You tell him what day you will start, and whither you 
are going — leave all the rest to him. You need not inquire about 
trains or fares, or car changes, or hotels, or anything else. At the 
proper time he will put you in a cab or an omnibus, and drive you 
to the train or the boat ; he has packed your luggage and transferred 
it, he has paid all the bills. Other people have preceded you half an 



318 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



hour to scramble for impossible places and lose their tempers, but you 
can take your time, the courier has secured your seats for you, and 
you can occupy them at your leisure. 

At the station, the crowd mash one another to pulp in the effort 
to get the weighers' attention to their trunks ; they dispute hotly with 
these tyrants, who are cool and indifferent ; they get their baggage 
billets, at last, and then have another squeeze and another rage over 
the disheartening business of trying to get them recorded and paid for, 




TRAVELLING WITH A COURIER. 

and still another over the equally disheartening business of trying 
to get near enough to the ticket office to buy a ticket ; and now, with 
their tempers gone to the dogs, they must stand penned up and packed 
together, laden with wraps and satchels and shawl-straps, with the 
weary wife and babies, in the waiting-room, till the doors are thrown 
open — and then all hands make a grand final rush to the train, find it 
full, and have to stand on the platform and fret until some more cars 
are put on. They are in a condition to kill somebody by this time. 



A. TRAMP ABROAD. 310 

Meantime you have been sitting in your car, smoking, and observing 
all this misery in the extremest comfort. 

On the journey the guard is polite and watchful — won't allow 
anybody to get into your compartment — tells them you are just re- 
covering from the small-pox and do not like to be disturbed. For the 
courier has made everything right with the guard. At way-stations 
the courier comes to your compartment to see if you want a glass of 
water, or a newspaper, or anything ; at eating-stations he sends luncheon 
out to you, while the other people scramble and worry in the dining- 
rooms. If anything breaks, about the car you are in, and the station- 
master proposes to pack you and your agent into a compartment with 
strangers, the courier reveals to him confidentially that you are a 
French duke, born deaf and dumb, and the official comes and makes 
affable signs that he has ordered a choice car to be added to the train 
for you. 

At custom-houses the multitude rile tediously through, hot and 
irritated, and look on while the officers burrow into the trunk > 
and make a mess of everything ; but you hand your keys to the courier 
and sit still. Perhaps you arrive at your destination in a rainstom. 
at ten at night — you generally do. The multitude spend half an 
hour verifying their baggage and getting it transferred to the minibuses: 
but the courier puts you into a vehicle without a moment's loss of time, 
and when you reach your hotel you find your rooms have been secured 
two or three days in advance, everything is ready, you can go at 
once to bed. Some of those other people will have to drift around to 
two or three hotels, in the rain, before they find accommodations. 

I have not set down half of the virtues that are vested in a good 
courier, but I think I have set down a sufficiency of them to show 
that an irritable man who can afford one and does not employ him is 
not a wise economist. My courier was the worst one in Europe, yet he 
was a good deal better than none at all. It could not pay him to be a 
better one than he was, because I could not afford to buy things 
through him. He was a good enough courier for the small amount 
he got out of his service. Yes, to travel with a courier is bliss, to 
travel without one is the reverse. 

I have had dealings with some very bad couriers; but I have also 
had dealings with one who might fairly be called perfection. He was 



S20 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



a young Polander, named Joseph N. Verey. He spoke eight languages, 
and seemed to be equally at home in all of them ; he was shrewd, prompt, 
posted, and punctual; he was fertile in resources, and singularly 
gifted in the matter of overcoming difficulties ; he not only knew 
how to do everything in his line, but he knew the best ways and the 
quickest ; he was handy with children and invalids ; all his employer 
needed to do was to take life easy and leave everything to the courier. 
His address is, care of Mr. 0. H. Caygill, 371 Strand, London. 
Excellent couriers are somewhat rare ; if the reader is about to travel, 
he will find it to his advantage to make a note of this one. 




TRAVELLERS TRIALS. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 321 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

The beautiful Giesbach Fall is near Interlaken, on the other side 
of the lake of Brienz, and is illuminated every night with those 
gorgeous theatrical fires whose name I cannot call just at this moment. 
This was said to be a spectacle which the tourist ought by no means to 
miss. I was strongly tempted, but I could not go there with propriety, 
because one goes in a boat. The task which I had set myself was to 
walk over Europe on foot, not skim over it in a boat. I had made 
a tacit contract with myself ; it was my duty to abide by it. I was 
willing to make boat-trips for pleasure, but I could not conscientiously 
make thern in the way of business. 

It cost me something of a pang to lose that fine sight, but I lived 
down the desire, and gained in my self-respect through the triumph. I 
had a finer and a grander sight, however, where I was. This was the 
mighty dome of the Jungfrau softly outlined against the sky and faintly 
silvered by the starlight. There Was something subduing in the in- 
fluence of that silent and solemn and awful presence ; one seemed to 
meet the immutable, the indestructible, the eternal, face to face, and 
to feel the trivial and fleeting nature of his own existence the more 
sharply by the contrast. One had the sense of being under the brood- 
ing contemplation of a spirit, not an inert mass of rocks and ice — a spirit 
which had looked down, through the slow drift of the ages, upon a 
million vanished races of men, and judged them ; and would judge a 
million more — and still be there, watching, unchanged and unchange- 
able, after all life should be gone and the earth have become a 
vacant desolation. 

While I was feeling these things, I was groping, without know- 
ing it, toward an understanding of what the spell is which people find 

Y 



322 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

in the Alps, and in no other mountains — that strange, deep, nameless 
influence which, once felt, cannot be forgotten — once felt, leaves always 
behind it a restless longing to feel it again — a longing which is like 
homesickness ; a grieving, haunting yearning, which will plead, im- 
plore, and persecute till it has its will. I met dozens of people, imagi- 
native and unimaginative, cultivated and uncultivated, who had come 
from far countries and roamed through the Swiss Alps year after year 
— they could not explain why. They had come first, they said, out 
of idle curiosity, because everybody talked about it ; they had come 
since because they could not help it, and they should keep on coming, 
while they lived, for the same reason ; they had tried to break their 
chains and stay away, but it was futile ; now they had no desire to 
break them. Others came nearer formulating what they felt ; they 
said they could find perfect rest and peace nowhere else when they 
were troubled ; all frets and worries and chafings sank to sleep in 
the presence of the benignant serenity of the Alps ; the Great Spirit 
of the Mountain breathed his own peace upon their hurt minds and sore 
hearts, and healed them ; they could not think base thoughts or do 
mean and sordid things here, before the visible throne of God. 

Down the road a piece was a Kursaal — whatever that may be — 
and we joined the human tide to see what sort of enjoyment it might 
afford. It was the usual open-air concert, in an ornamental garden, 
with wines, beer, milk, whey, grapes, etc. — the whey and the grapes 
being necessaries of life to certain invalids whom physicians cannot 
repair, and who only continue to exist by the grace of whey or grapes. 
One of these departed spirits told me, in a sad and lifeless way, that 
there was no way for him to live but by whey ; never drank anything, 
now, but whey, and dearly, dearly loved whey, he didn't know whey he - 
did, but he did. After making this pun he died — that is the whey 
it served him. 

Some other remains, preserved from decomposition by the grape 
system, told me that the grapes were of a peculiar breed, highly 
medicinal in their nature, and that they were counted out and adminis- 
tered by the grape-doctors as methodically as if they were pills. The 
new patient, if very feeble, began with one grape before breakfast, 
took three during breakfast, a couple between meals, five at luncheon, 
three in the afternoon, seven at dinner, four for supper, and part of a 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



323 



grape just before going to bed by way of a general regulator. The 
quantity was gradually and regularly increased, according to the needs 
and capacities of the patient, until by-and-by you would find him dispos- 
ing of his one grape per second all the day long, and his regular barrel 
per day. 

He said that men cured in this way, and enabled to discard the 
grape system, never afterwards got over the habit of talking as if they 
were dictating to a slow amanuensis, because they always made a 
pause between each two words while they sucked the substance out of 
an imaginary grape. He said these were tedious people to talk with. 
He said that men who had been cured by the other process were 




GRAPE AND WHEY PATIENTS. 

easily distinguished from the rest of mankind because they always 
tilted their heads back between every two words, and swallowed a 
swig of imaginary whey. He said it was an impressive thing to 
observe two men who had been cured by the two processes engaged 
in conversation — said their pauses and accompanying movements were 
so continuous and regular that a stranger would think himself in the 
presence of a couple of automatic machines. One finds out a great 
many wonderful things by travelling if he stumbles upon the right 
person. 

I did not remain long at the Kursaal ; the music was good enough, 
but it seemed rather tame after the cyclone of that Arkansaw expert. 



324 A TEA MP ABROAD. 

Besides my adventurous spirit had conceived a formidable enterprise — 
nothing less than a trip from Interlaken, by the Gemmi and Visp, clear- 
to Zermatt, on foot ! So it was necessary to plan the details, and get 
ready for an early start. The courier (this was not the one I have 
just been speaking of) thought that the porticr of the hotel would be 
able to tell us how to find our way. And so it turned out. He showed 
us the whole thing on a relief-map, and we could see our route, with all 
its elevations and depressions, its villages and its rivers, as clearly as if 
we were sailing over it in a balloon. A relief-map is a great thing. 
Thepo?*tier also wrote down each day's journey and the nightly hotel on 
a piece of paper, and made our course so plain that we should never 
be able to get lost without high-priced outside help. 

I put the courier in the care of a gentleman who was going to 
Lausanne, and then we went to bed, after laying out the walking 
costumes and putting them into condition for instant occupation in 
the morning. 

However, when we came down to breakfast at 8 a.m., it looked 1 , 
so much like rain that I hired a two-horse top-buggy for the first third 
of the journey. For two or three hours we jogged along the level 
road which skirts the beautiful lake of Thun, with a dim and dream- 
like picture of watery expanses and spectral Alpine forms always before 
us, veiled in a mellowing mist. Then a steady downpour set in, and 
hid everything but the nearest objects. We kept the rain out of our 
faces with umbrellas, and away from our bodies with the leather apron 
of the buggy ; but the driver sat unsheltered, and placidly soaked the 
weather in and seemed to like it. We had the road all to ourselves, 
and I never had a pleasanter excursion. 

The weather began to clear while we were driving up a valley 
called the Kienthal, and presently a vast black cloud-bank in front of 
us dissolved away and uncurtained the grand proportions and the soar- 
ing loftinesses of the Blumis Alp. It was a sort of breath-taking 
surprise ; for we had not supposed there was anything behind that low- 
hung blanket of sable cloud but level valley. What we had been 
mistaking for fleeting glimpses of sky away aloft there were really patches 
of the Blumis's snowy crest caught through shredded rents in the drift- 
ing pall of vapour. 

We dined in the inn at Frutigen, and our driver ought to have 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



325 



dined there too, but he would not have had time to dine and get drunk 
both, so he gave his mind to making a masterpiece of the latter, and 
succeeded. A German gentleman and his two young lady daughters 
had been taking their nooning at the inn, and when they left, just 
ahead of us, it was p ] ain that their driver was as drunk as ours, and as 
happy and good-natured too, which was saying a good deal. These 
rascals overflowed with attentions and information for their guests. 




SOCIABLE DRIVERS. 

and with brotherly love for each other. They tied their reins, and took 
off their coats and hats, so that they might be able to give unen- 
cumbered attention to conversation and to the gestures necessary for 
its illustration. 

The road was smooth ; it led up and over and down a continual 
succession of hills; but it was narrow, the horses were used to it, 
and could not well get out of it anyhow; so why shouldn't the 
drivers entertain themselves and us ? The noses of our horses pro- 



326 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



ject< 







■•■m 



sociably into the rear of the forward carriage, and as we 

toiled up the long hills our 
driver stood up and talked to 
his friend, and his friend stood 
up and talked back to him, 
with his rear to the scenery. 
When the top was reached, 
and we went flying down the 
other side, there was no change 
in the programme. I carry 
in my memory yet the picture 
of that forward driver, on his 
knees on his high seat, resting 
his elbows on its back, and 
beaming down on his pas- 
sengers, with happy eye, and 
flying hair, and jolly red face, 
and offering his card to the 
old German gentleman, while 
he praised his hack and horses, 
and both teams were whizzing 
down a long hill with nobody 
in a position to tell whether 
we were bound to destruction 
or an undeserved safety. 

Toward sunset we entered 
a beautiful green valley dotted 
with chalets, a cosy little do- 
main, hidden away from the 
busy world in a cloistered 
nook, among giant precipices 
topped with snowy peaks that 
seemed to float like islands 
above the curling surf of the 



sea of vapour that severed 
ihem from the lower world. 
Lown from vague and vapor- 




A MOUNTAIN CASCADE. 



TRAMP ABROAD. 



32: 



ous heights, little ruffled zigzag milky currents came crawling, and 
found their way to the verge of one of those tremendous overhanging 




walls, whence they plunged, a 
shaft of silver, shivered to atoms 
in mid-descent, and turned to 
an airy puff of luminous dust. 
Here and there, in grooved de- 
pressions among the snowy deso- 
lations of the upper altitudes, one glimpsed the 
extremity of a glacier, with its seagreen and 
honeycombed battlements of ice. 

Up the valley, under a dizzy precipice, 
nestled the village of Kandersteg, our halting- 
place for the night. We were soon there, and 
housed in the hotel. But the waning day had 
such an inviting influence that we did not 
remain housed many moments, but struck out 
and followed a roaring torrent of ice- water up to its far source in a sort 
of little grass- carpeted parlour, walled in all around by vast precipices 
and overlooked by clustering summits of ice. This was the snuggest 
little croquet-ground imaginable ; it was perfectly level, and not more 



THE GASTERNTHAL. 



128 



A 1RAMP ABROAD. 



ohan a mile long by half a mile wide. The walls around it were so 

gigantic, and everything about it was on so mighty a scale, that it was 

\\? fp --'"';- ...^ belittled, by contrast, to what I 

-' »'^ wT"--"^ X \ -C? — have likened it to — a cosy and 

__ """ Vr^/S^. • '.-:'• > _ carpeted parlour. It was so high 

- v -. p -'- -"."-■.-,•,. "••••'-— above the Kandersteg valley that 

there was nothing between it and 
the snow-peaks. I had never 
been in such intimate relations 
with the high altitudes before; 
the snow-peaks had always been 
remote and unapproachable 
grandeurs hitherto, but now we 
were hob-a-nob — if one may use 
.such a seemingly irreverent ex- 
pression about creations so august 
as these. 

We could see the streams 

which fed the torrent we had 

followed issuing from under the 

- $ greenish ramparts 

of glaciers ; but 

two or three of 

these, instead of 

flowing over the 

precipices, sank 

down into the rock 

and sprang in big 

jets out of holes in 

the mid-face of the 

walls. 

The green nook 
which I have been 
describing is call- 
ed the Gasternthal. 
The glacier streams gather and flow through it in a broad and rushing 
brook to a narrow cleft between lofty precipices; here the rushing 




<-^^m^i 



EXHILARATING SPORT. 



A TRAMP ABB OAT). 329 

orook becomes a mad torrent and goes booming and thundering down 
towards Kandersteg, lashing and thrashing its way over and among 
monster boulders, and hurling chance roots and logs about like straws. 
There was no lack of cascades along this route. The path by the side 
of the torrent was so narrow that one had to look sharp when he heard 
a cow-bell, and hunt for a place that was wide enough to accommodate 
a cow and a Christian side by side, and such places were not always 
to be had at an instant's notice. The cows wear church-bells, and that 
is a good idea in the cows, for where that torrent is you couldn't hear 




A FALL. 

an ordinary cow-bell any further than you could hear the ticking 
of a watch. 

I needed exercise, so I employed my agent in setting stranded logs 
and dead trees adrift, and I sat on a boulder and watched them go 
whirling and leaping head over heels down the boiling torrent. It 
was a wonderfully exhilarating spectacle. When I had had exercise 
•enough, I made the agent take some, by running a race with one of 
those logs. I made a trifle by betting on the log. 

After dinner we had a walk up and dowm the quiet Kandersteg 
valley, in the soft gloaming, with the spectacle of the dying lights of 
•day playing about the crests and pinnacles of the still and solemn 



330 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

upper realms for contrast, and text for talk. There were no sounds* 
but the dull complaining of the torrent and the occasional tinkling of 
a distant bell. The spirit of the place was a sense of deep, pervad- 
ing peace ; one might dream his life tranquilly away there, and not 
miss it or mind it when it was gone. 

The summer departed with the sun, and winter came with the 
stars. It grew to be a bitter night in that little hotel, backed up 
against a precipice that had no visible top to it ; but we kept 
warm, and woke in time in the morning to find that everybody else 
had left for the Gemmi three hours before — so our little plan of helping 
that German family (principally the old man) over the Pass was a 
blocked generosity. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 331 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

We hired the only guide left, to lead us on our way. He was over 
seventy, but he could have given me nine-tenths of his strength and 
still had all his age entitled him to. He shouldered our satchels, over- 
coats, and alpenstocks, and we set out up the steep path. It was hot 
work. The old man soon begged us to hand over our coats and waist- 
coats to him to carry, too, and we did it; one could not refuse so little 
a thing to a poor old man like that ; he should have had them if he 
had been a hundred and fifty. 

When we began that ascent, we could see a microscopic chalet 
perched away up against heaven on what seemed to be the highest 
mountain near us. It was on our right, across the narrow head of the 
valley. But when we got up abreast it, on its own level, mountains 
were towering high above on every hand, and we saw that its altitude 
was just about that of the little Gasternthal which we had visited the 
evening before. Still, it seemed a long way up in the air, in that waste 
and lonely wilderness of rocks. It bad an unfenced grass-plot in front 
of it which seemed about as big as a billiard-table, and this grass- 
plot slanted so sharply downwards, and was so brief, and ended so 
exceedingly soon at the verge of the absolute precipice, that it was a 
shuddery thing to think of a person's venturing to trust his foot on 
an incline so situated at all. Suppose a man stepped on an orange-peel 
in that yard : there would be nothing for him to seize ; nothing could 
keep him from rolling ; five revolutions would bring him to the edge, 
and over he would go. What a frightful distance he would fall ! — for 
there are very few birds that fly as high as his starting-point. He 
would strike and bounce, two or three times on his way down, but this 
would be no advantage to him. I would as soon take an airing on the 
slant of a rainbow as in such a front yard. I would rather, in fact, for 



332 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



the distance down would be about the same, and it is pleasanter to slide 
than to bounce. I could not see how the peasants got up to that 
chalet — the region seemed too steep for anything but a balloon. 

As we strolled 
on, climbing up 
higher and higher, 
we were continu- 
ally bringing neigh- 
bouring peaks into 
view, and lofty pro- 
minences which 
had been hidden 
behind lower peaks 
before ; so, by-and- 
by, while standing 
before a group of 
these giants, we 
looked around for 
the chalet again : 
there it was, away 
down below us, ap- 
parently on an in- 
conspicuous ridge 
in the valley ! It 
was as far below us, 
now, as it had been above us when we were beginning the ascent. 

After a while the path led us along a railed precipice, and we looked 
over — far beneath us was the snug parlour again, the little Gasternthal, 
with its water-jets spouting from the face of its rock walls. We could 
have dropped a stone into it. We had been rinding the top of the 
world all along — and always finding a still higher top stealing into view 
in a disappointing way just ahead ; when we looked down into the 
Gasternthal we felt pretty sure that we had reached the genuine top 
at last, but it was not so ; there were much higher altitudes to be 
scaled yet. We were still in the pleasant shade of forest trees, we were 
still in a region which was cushioned with beautiful mosses and aglow 
with the many-tinted lustre of innumerable wild-flowers. 




WHAT MIGHT BE. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



333 



We found, indeed, more interest in the wild-flowers than in any- 
thing else. We gathered a specimen or two of every kind which we 
were unacquainted 
with; so we had 
sumptuous bouquets. 
But one of the chief 
interests lay in chas- 
ing the seasons of the 
year up the mountain 
and determining them 
by the presence of 
flowers and berries 
which we were ac- 
quainted with. For 
instance, it was the 
end of August at the 
level of the sea; in 
the Kandersteg val- 
ley, at the base of the 
Pass, we found 
flowers which would 
not be due at the sea 
level for two or three 
weeks ; higher up we 
entered October, and 
gathered fringed gen- 
tians. I made no 




AX ALPINE BOUQUET. 



notes, and have forgotten the details, but the construction of the floral 
calendar was very entertaining while it lasted. 

In the high regions we found rich store of the splendid red flower 
called the Alpine rose, but we did not find any example of the ugly 
Swiss favourite called Edelweiss. Its name seems to indicate that it is 
a noble flower and that it is white. It may be noble enough, but it is 
not attractive, and it is not white. The fuzzy blossom is the colour 
of bad cigar ashes, and appears to be made of a cheap quality of grey 
plush. It has a noble and distant way of confining itself to the high 
altitudes, but that is probably on account of its looks ; it apparently 



334 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

has no monopoly of those upper altitudes, however, for they are some- 
times intruded upon by some of the loveliest of the valley families 
of wild-flowers. Everybody in the Alps wears a sprig of Edelweiss in 
his hat. It is the native's pet, and also the tourist's. 

All the morning, as we loafed along, having a good time, other 
pedestrians went staving by us with vigorous strides, and with the 
intent and determined look of men who were walking for a wager. 
These wore loose knee-breeches, long yarn stockings, and hobnailed 
high-laced walking-shoes. They were gentlemen who would go home 
to England or Germany and tell how many miles they had beaten the 
guide-book every day. But I doubted if they ever had much real 
fun. outside of the mere magnificent exhilaration of the tramp through 
the green valleys and the breezy heights ; for they were almost always 
alone, and even the finest scenery loses incalculably when there is no one 
to enjoy it with. 

All the morning an endless double procession of mule-mounted 
tourists filed past us along the narrow path — the one procession going, 
the other coming. We had taken a good deal of trouble to teach our- 
selves the kindly German custom of saluting all strangers with doffed 
hat, and we resolutely clung to it that morning, although it kept us 
bare-headed most of the time and was not always responded to. Still 
we found an interest in the thing, because we naturally liked to know 
who were English and Americans among the passers-by. All Conti- 
nental natives responded, of course ; so did some of the English and 
Americans, but as a general thing these two races gave no sign. When- 
ever a man or a woman showed us cold neglect, we spoke up con- 
fidently in our own tongue and asked for such information as we happened 
to need, and we always got a reply in the same language. The English 
and American folk are not less kindly than other races, they are only 
more reserved, and that comes of habit and education. In one dreary, 
rocky waste, away above the line of vegetation, we met a procession 
of twenty-five mounted young men, all from America. We got answer- 
ing bows enough from these, of course, for they were of an age to 
learn to do in Rome as Rome does, without much effort. 

At one extremity of this patch of desolation, overhung by bare 
and forbidding crags which husbanded drifts of everlasting snow in 
their shaded cavities, was a small stretch of thin and discouraged 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



335 



grass, and a man and a family of pigs were actually living here in some 
shanties. Consequently this place could be really reckoned as ' property ; ' 
it had a money value, and was doubtless taxed. I think it must have 




'HE END OF THE WORLD. 



marked the 
limit of real 
estate in this 
world. It 
would be 
hard to set 

a money value upon any piece of earth that lies between that spot 
and the empty realm of space. That man may claim the distinction 
of owning the end of the world, for if there is any definite end to the 
world he has certainly found it. 

From here forward we moved through a storm-swept and smileless 
desolation. All about us rose gigantic masses, crags, and ramparts ot 
bare and dreary rock, with not a vestige or semblance of plant or 
tree or flower anywhere, or glimpse of any creature that had life. The 
frost and the tempests of unnumbered ages had battered and hacked at 
these cliffs, with a deathless energy, destroying them piecemeal ; so all 
the region about their bases was a tumbled chaos of great fragments 
which had been split off and hurled to the ground. Soiled and aged 
banks of snow lay close about our path. The ghastly desolation oi 
the place was as tremendously complete as if Dore had furnished the 



336 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

working plans for it. But every now and then,' through the stern gate- 
ways around us, we caught a view of some neighbouring majestic 
dome, sheathed with glittering ice, and displaying its white purity at 
an elevation compared to which ours was grovelling and plebeian, and 
this spectacle always chained one's interest and admiration at once, and 
made him forget there was anything ugly in the world. 

I have just said that there was nothing but death and desolation 
in these hideous places, but I forgot. In the most forlorn and arid and 
dismal one of all, where the racked and splintered debris was thickest, 
where the ancient patches of snow lay against the very path, where the 
winds blew bitterest and the general aspect was mournfullest and 

dreariest, and furthest from any sug- 
gestion of cheer or hope, I found a 
solitary wee forget-me-not flourishing 
away, not a droop about it anywhere, 
but holding its bright blue star up 
with the prettiest and gallantest air 
in the world, the only happy spirit, 
the only smiling thing, in all that grisly 
desert. She seemed to say, ' Cheer 
up ! — as long as we are here, let us 
the forget-me-not. make the best of it.' I judged she had 

earned a right to a more hospitable 
place ; so I plucked her up and sent her to America to a friend who 
would respect her for the fight she had made, all by her small self, 
to make a whole vast despondent Alpine desolation stop breaking its 
heart over the unalterable, and hold up its head and look at the bright 
side of things for once. 

We stopped for a nooning at a strongly built little inn called the 
Schwarenbach. It sits in a lonely spot among the peaks, where it is 
swept by the trailing fringes of the cloud-rack, and is rained on, snowed 
on, and pelted and persecuted by the storms nearly every day of its 
life. It was the only habitation in the whole Gemmi Pass. 

Close at hand, now, was a chance for a blood-curdling Alpine adven- 
ture. Close at hand was the snowy mass of the Great Altels cooling 
its top-knot in the sky and daring us to an ascent. I was fired with the 
idea, and immediately made up my mind to procure the necessary 




A 1 RAMP ABROAD. 337 

guides, ropes, etc., and undertake it. I instructed Harris to go to the 
landlord of trie inn and set him about our preparations. Meantime I 
went diligently to work to read up and find out what this much- 
talked-of mountain- climbing was like, and how one should go about 
it — for in these matters I was ignorant. I opened Mr. HinchlifFs 
'Summer Months among the Alps' (published 1857), and selected 
his account of his ascent of Monte Rosa. It began — 

* It is very difficult to free the mind from excitement on the evening 
before a grand expedition ' 

I saw that I was too calm ; so I walked the room a while and worked 
myself into a high excitement; but the book's next remark — that 
the adventurer must get up at two in the morning — came as near as 
anything to flatting it all out again. However, I reinforced it, and 
read on, about how Mr. Hinchliff dressed by candle-light and was 
' soon down among the guides, who were bustling about in the passage, 
packing provisions, and making every preparation for the start ; ' and 
how he glanced out into the cold clear night and saw that — 

' The whole sky was blazing with stars, larger and brighter than 
they appear through the dense atmosphere breathed by inhabitants of 
the lower pares of the earth. They seemed actually suspended from 
the dark vault of heaven, and their gentle light shed a fairy -like gleam 
over the snow-fields around the foot of the Matterhorn, which raised 
its stupendous pinnacle on high, penetrating to the heart of the Great 
Bear, and crowning itself with a diadem of his magnificent stars. Not 
a sound disturbed the deep tranquillity of the night, except the distant 
roar of streams which rush from the high plateau of the St. Theodule 
glacier, and fall headlong over precipitous rocks till they lose them- 
selves in the mazes of the Gorner glacier.' 

He took his hot toast and coffee, and then about half-past three 
his caravan of ten men filed away from the Riffel Hotel, and began 
the steep climb. At half- past five he happened to turn around, and 
' beheld the glorious spectacle of the Matterhorn, just touched by the 
rosy-fingered morning, and looking like a huge pyramid of fire rising 
out of the barren ocean of ice and rock around it.' Then the Breithorn 
and the Dent Blanche caught the radiant glow ; but ' the intervening 
mass of Monte Rosa made it necessary for us to climb many hours 
before we could hope to see the sun himself, yet the whole air soon 
grew warmer after the splendid birth of day.' 



338 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 

„e gazed at ft. lofty crown of Monte Kosa and £ wastes^now 

steep approaches, 
and the chief guide 
delivered the 
opinion that no 
man could conquer 
their awful heights 
and put his foot 
upon that summit. 
But the adventurers 
moved steadily on, 
nevertheless. 

They toiled up, 
and up, and still up; 
they passed the 
Grand Plateau ; 
then toiled up a 
steep shculder of 
the mountain, 
clinging like flies to 
its rugged face ; 
and now they were 
confronted by a 
tremendous wall 
from which great 
blocks of ice and 
snow were evi- 
dently in the habit 
of falling. They 
turned aside to skirt 
this wall, and gradu- 
ally ascended until 
their way was 
barred by a < maze 
of gigantic snow 
climb of 




A SF,.bDLE OF ICE. 



erevnsses'-so they turned aside again, and ' began a Ion; 
(sufficient steepness to make a zigzag course necessary. 



A TEA MP ABROAD. 3*J9 

Fatigue compelled them to halt frequently for a moment or two. 
At one of these halts somebody called out, ' Look at Mont Blanc ! ' 
•and 4 we were at once made aware of the very, great height we had 
attained by actually seeing the monarch of the Alps and his attendant 
satellites right over the top of the Breithorn, itself at least 14,000 feet 
high ! ' 

These people moved in single file, and were all tied to a strong 
rope, at regular distances apart, so that if one of them slipped on 
those giddy heights the others could brace themselves on their alpen- 
stocks and save him from darting into the valley, thousands of feet 
below. By-and-by they came to an ice-coated ridge which was tilted 
up at a sharp angle and had a precipice on one side of it. They had 
to climb this, so the guide in the lead cut steps in the ice with his 
hatchet, and as fast as he took his toes out of one of these slight holes, 
the toes of the man behind him occupied it. 

'Slowly- and steadily we kept on our way over this dangerous part 
of the ascent, and I daresay it was fortunate for some of us that atten- 
tion was distracted from the head by the paramount necessity of look- 
ing after the feet; for, while on the left the incline of ice was so steep 
that it would be impossible for any man to save himself in case of a slip, 
unless the others could hold him up, on the right we might drop a 
pebble from the hand over precipices of unknown extent down upon the 
tremendous glacier below. 

i Great caution, therefore, was absolutely necessary, and in this 
exposed situation we were attacked by all the fury of that grand enemy 
of aspirants to Monte Rosa — a severe and bitterly cold wind from the 
north. The fine powdery snow was driven past us in clouds, penetrating 
the interstices of our clothes, and the pieces of ice which new from the 
blows of Peter's axe were whisked into the air, and then dashed over 
the precipice. We had quite enough to do to prevent ourselves from 
being served in the same ruthless fashion, and now and then, in the 
more violent gusts of wind, were glad to stick our alpenstocks into the 
:ice and hold on hard.' 

Having surmounted this perilous steep, they sat down and took a 
brief rest with their backs against a sheltering rock and their heels 
dangling over a bottomless abyss ; then they climbed to the base of 
-another ridge, a more difficult and dangerous one still: — 

z2 



340 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

1 The whole of the ridge was exceedingly narrow, and the fall od 
each side desperately steep, but the ice in some of these intervals 
between the masses of rock assumed the form of a mere sharp edge r 
almost like a knife ; these places, though not more than three or four 
short paces in length, looked uncommonly awkward ; but, like the 
sword leading true believers to the gates of Paradise, they must needs 
be passed before we could attain to the summit of our ambition. These 
were in one or two places so narrow, that in stepping over them with 
toes well turned out for greater security, one end of the foot projected 
over the awful precipice on the right, while the other was on the beginning 
of the icy slope on the left, which was scarcely less steep than the rocks. 
On these occasions Peter would take my hand, and each of us stretching 
as far as we could, he was thus enabled to get a firm footing two paces 
or rather more from me, whence a spring would probably bring him to- 
the rock on the other side ; then, turning round, he called to me to 
come, and taking a couple of steps carefully, I was met at the third by 
his outstretched hand ready to clasp mine, and in a moment stood 
by his side. The others followed in much the same fashion. Once 
my right foot slipped on the side towards the precipice, but I threw 
out my left arm in a moment so that it caught the icy edge under 
my armpit as I fell, and supported me considerably; at the same instant 
I cast my eyes down the side on which I had slipped, and contrived to 
plant my right foot on a piece ot rock as large as a cricket-ball r 
which chanced to protrude through the ice, on the very edge of the 
precipice. Being thus anchored fore and aft, as it were, I believe I 
could easily have recovered myself, even if I had been alone, though it 
must be confessed the situation would have been an awful one ; as it 
vas, however, a jerk from Peter settled the matter very soon, and I 
was on my legs all right in an instant. The rope is an immense help 
in places of this kind.' 

Now they arrived at the base of a great knob or dome veneered 
with ice and powdered with snow — the utmost summit, the last bit of 
solidity between them and the hollow vault of heaven. Thay set to 
work with their hatchets, and were soon creeping, insect-like, up its- 
surface, with their heels projecting over the thinnest kind of nothing- 
ness, thickened up a little with a few wandering shreds and films of 
cloud moving in lazy procession far below. Presently one man's toe- 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



341 



hold broke and he fell ! There he 
dangled in mid-air at the end of the 
rope, like a spider, till his friends 
above hauled him into place again. 

A little bit later the party stood 
upon the wee pedestal of the very 
summit, in a driving wind, and looked 
out upon the vast green expanses of 
Italy and a shoreless ocean of billowy 
Alps. 

When I had read thus far, Harris 
burst into the room in a noble excite- 
ment and said the ropes and the guides 
were secured, and asked if I was 
ready. I said I believed I wouldn't 
ascend the Altels this time. I said 
Alp-climbing was a different thing 
from what I had supposed it was, and 




CUTTING STEPS. 




THE GUIDE. 



342 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



so I judged we -had better study its points a little more before we wenf- 
definitely into it. But I told him to retain the guides and order them 
to follow us to Zermatt, because I meant to use them there. I said I 
could feel the spirit of adventure beginning to stir in me, and was sure 
that the fell fascination of Alp-climbing would soon be upon me. I 
said he could make up his mind to it that we would do a deed before 
we were a week older which would make the hair of the timid curl with 
fright. 

This made Harris happy, and filled him with ambitious anticipa- 
tions. He went at once to tell the guides to follow us to Zermatt and 
bring all their paraphernalia with them. 



TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

A great and priceless thing is a new interest ! How it takes possession 
of a man ! how it clings to him ! how it rides him ! I strode onward 
from the Schwarenbach hostelry a changed man, a reorganised person- 
ality. I walked in a new world, I saw with new eyes. I had been 
looking aloft at the giant snow-peaks only as things to be worshipped 
for their grandeur and magnitude, and their unspeakable grace of 
form ; I looked up at them now, as also things to be conquered and 
climbed. My sense of their grandeur and their noble beauty was 
neither lost nor impaired ; I had gained a new interest in the mountains 
without losing the old ones. I followed the steep lines up, inch by 
inch, with my eye, and noted the possibility or impossibility of follow- 
ing them with my feet. When I saw a shining helmet of ice projecting 
above the clouds, I tried to imagine I saw files of black specks toiling 
up it roped together with a gossamer thread. 

We skirted the lonely little lake called the Daubensee, and presently 
passed close by a glacier on the right — a thing like a great river frozen 
solid in its flow and broken square off like a wall at its mouth. I had 
never been so near a glacier before. 

Here we came upon a new board shanty, and found some men 
engaged in building a stone house ; so the Schwarenbach was soon < 
to have a rival. We bought a bottle or so of beer here ; at any rate i 
they called it beer, but I knew by the price that it was dissolved 
jewellery, and I perceived by the taste that dissolved jewellery is not 
good stuff to drink. 

We were surrounded by a hideous desolation. We stepped forward 
to a sort of jumping-off place, and were confronted by a startling 
contrast; we seemed to look down into fairyland. Two or three 



344 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



thousand feet below us was a bright green level, with a pretty town in 
its midst, and a silvery stream winding among the meadows; the 
charming spot was walled in on all sides by gigantic precipices 
clothed with pines ; and over the pines, out of the softened distances, 




VIEW FEOM THE CLTFF. 

rose the snowy domes and peaks of the Monte Eosa region. How 
exquisitely green and beautiful that little valley down there was ! 
The distance was not great enough to obliterate details, it only made 
them little, and mellow, and dainty, like landscapes and towns seen 
through the wrong end of a spy-glass. 

Eight under us a narrow ledge rose up out of the valley, with a 
green, slanting, bench-shaped top, and grouped about upon this 
green-baize bench were a lot of black and white sheep which looked 
merely like over-sized worms. The bench seemed lifted well up into 
our neighbourhood, but that was a deception — it was a long way down 
to it. 

We began our descent, now, by the most remarkable road I have 



mk 






i 






» 



■i I 

HI 



B«: 






if' ■'Ii 



■ ■ 



: 



*.!E[!,:;,:Kj 






A TRAMP ABROAD. S-47 

ever seen. It wound in corkscrew curves down the face of the colossal 
precipice — a narrow way, with always the solid rock wall at one elbow,, 
and perpendicular nothingness at the other. We met an everlasting 
procession of guides, porters, mules, litters, and tourists climbing up 
this steep and muddy path, and there was no room to spare when you 
had to pass a tolerably fat mule. I always took the inside, when I 
heard or saw the mule coming, and flattened myself against the wall. 
I preferred the inside, of course, but I should have had to take it any- 
how, because the mule prefers the outside. A mule's preference — on 
a precipice — is a thing to be respected. Well, his choice is always the- 
outside. His life is mostly devoted to carrying bulky panniers and 
packages which rest against his body — therefore he is habituated to 
taking the outside edge of mountain paths, to keep his bundles from 
rubbing against rocks or banks on the other. When he goes into the 
passenger business he absurdly clings to his old habit, and keeps on© 
leg of his passenger always dangling over the great deeps of the lower 
world, while that passenger's heart is in the highlands, so to speak. 
More than once I saw a mule's hind foot cave over the outer edge 
and send earth and rubbish into the bottomless abyss ; and I noticed 
that upon these occasions the rider, whether male or female, looked 
tolerably unwell. 

There was one place where an 18-inch breadth of light masonry 
had been added to the verge of the path, and as there was a very sharp 
turn here, a panel of fencing had been set up there at some ancient 
time, as a protection. This panel was old and grey and feeble, and the 
light masonry had been loosened by recent rains. A young American 
girl came along on a mule, and in making the turn the mule's hind 
foot caved all the loose masonry and one of the fence posts overboard ; 
the mule gave a violent lurch inboard to save himself, and succeeded in 
the effort, but that girl turned as white as the snows of Mont Blanc 
for a moment. 

The path here was simply a groove cut into the face of the 
precipice; there was a four-foot breadth of solid rock under the- 
traveller, and a four- foot breadth of solid rock just above his head, 
like the roof of a narrow porch; he could look out from this gallery 
and see a sheer summitless and bottomless wall of rock before him,, 
across a gorge or crack a biscuit'3 toss in width — but he could not 



348 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



see the bottom of his own precipice unless he lay down and projected 
his nose over the edge. I did not do this, because I did not wish 
to soil my 
clothes. 

Every few 
hundred 
yards, at 
par ticularly 
bad places, 
one came 
across 
panel or so 
of plank 
fen c i n g ; 
but they 
were always 
old and 
weak, and 
they gene- 
rally leaned 

out over the chasm and did not make any rash 
promises to hold up people who might need 
support. There was one of these panels which 
had only its upper board left ; a pedestrianis- 
ing English youth came tearing down the path, 
was seized with an impulse to look over the 
precipice, and without an instant's thought he 

threw his weight upon that crazy board. It bent outward a foot ! I 
never made a gasp before that came so near suffocating me. The 
English youth's face simply showed a lively surprise, but nothing 
more. He went swinging along valleyAvards again, as if he did not 
know he had just swindled a coroner by the closest kind of a shave. 

The Alpine litter is sometimes like a cushioned box made fast 
between the middles of two long poles, and sometimes it is a chair 
with a back to it and a support for the feet. It is carried by relays of 
strong porters. The motion is easier than that of any other convey- 
ance. We met a few men and a great many ladies in litters ; it 




ALMOST A TRAGEDY. 



A TliAMP ABROAD. 



Ud- 



seemed to me that most of the ladies looked pale and nauseated; 
their general aspect gave me the idea that they were patiently enduring; 

k 




THE ALPINE LITTER. 

a horrible suffering. As a rule, they looked at their laps, and left the 
scenery to take care of itself. 

But the most frightened creature I saw was a led horse that over- 
took us. Poor fellow ! he had been born and reared in the grassy 
levels of the Kandersteg valley, and had never seen anything like this 
hideous place before. Every few steps he would stop short, glance 
wildly out from the dizzy height, and then spread his red nostrils 
wide and pant as violently as if he had been running a race ; and 
all the while he quaked from head to heel as with a palsy. He w r as a 
handsome fellow, and he made a fine statuesque picture of terror, but 
it was pitiful to see him suffer so. 

This dreadful path has had its tragedy. Baedeker, with his 
customary over-terseness, begins and ends the tale thus : ' The descent 
on horseback should be avoided. In 15GJ a Comtesse d'Herlincourt 
fell from her saddle over the precipice and was killed on the spot.' 

"We looked over the precipice there, and saw the monument which 
commemorates the event. It stands in the bottom of the gorge, in a 
place which has been hollowed out of the rock to protect it from the 
torrent and the storms. Our old guide never spoke but when spoken 
to, and then limited himself to a syllable or two ; but when we asked 
him about this tragedy he showed a strong interest in the matter. 



350 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



He said the Countess was very pretty, and very young — hardly out of 
her girlhood, in fact. She was newly married, and was on her bridal 
tour. The young husband was riding a little in advance ; one guide 

was leading the hus- 
band's horse, another 
was leading the bride's. 
The old man con- 
tinued — 

' The guide that was 
leading the husband's 
horse happened to 
glance back, and there 
was that poor young 
thing sitting up staring 
out over the precipice ; 
and her face began to 
bend downward a little, 
and she put up her two 
hands slowly and met it 
— so — and put them flat 
against her eyes — so — 
and then she sank out 
of the saddle, with a 
sharp shriek, and one 
caught only the flash of 
a dress, and it was all 
over.' 

Then after a pause — 

' Ah, yes, that guide 

He saw them all, just as I 




A STRANGE SITUATION. 



-y^, 



he saw them all. 



My God, that was me. I was that 



saw these thin 
have told you.' 

After another pause — 

' Ah, yes, he saw them all 
guide ! ' 

This had been the one event of the old man's life 
be sure he had forgotten no detail connected with it. 
to all he had to say about what was done and what happened and 



so one may 
^Ye listened 




DEATH OF A COUNTESS. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 353 

what was said after the sorrowful occurrence, and a painful story it 
was. 

When we had wound down toward the valley until we were about 
on the last spiral of the corkscrew, Harris's hat blew over the last 
remaining bit of precipice — a small cliff a hundred or a hundred and 
fifty feet high — and sailed down towards a steep slant composed of 
rough chips and fragments which the weather had flaked away from the 
precipices. We went leisurely down there, expecting to find it without 
any trouble, but we had made a mistake as to that. We hunted during 
a couple of hours — not because the old straw hat was valuable, but 
out of curiosity to find out how such a thing could manage to conceal 
itself in open ground where there was nothing for it to hide behind. 
When one is reading in bed, and lays his paper-knife down, he cannot 
find it again if it is smaller than a sabre ; that hat was as stubborn as 
any paper-knife could have been, and we finally had to give it up ; 
but we found a fragment that had once belonged to an opera-glass, 
and by digging around and turning over the rocks we gradually 
collected all the lenses and the cylinders and the various odds and ends 
that go to make up a complete opera-glass. We afterwards had the 
thing reconstructed, and the owner can have his adventurous long- 
iost property by submitting proofs and paying costs of rehabilitation. 
We had hopes of finding the owner there, distributed around amongst 
the rocks, for it would have made an elegant paragraph ; but we were 
disappointed. Still, we were far from being disheartened, for there was 
a considerable area which we had not thoroughly searched ; we were 
satisfied he was there, somewhere, so we resolved to wait over a day 
at Leuk and come back and get him. Then we sat down to polish off 
the perspiration and arrange about what we would do with him 
when we got him. Harris was for contributing him to the British 
Museum ; but I was for mailing him to his widow. That is the 
difference between Harris and me : Harris is all for display, I am all 
for the simple right, even though I lose money by it. Harris argued in 
favour of his proposition and against mine; I argued in favour of 
mine and against his. The discussion warmed into a dispute; the 
dispute warmed into a quarrel. I finally said, very decidedly — 

' My mind is made up. He goes to the widow. 5 

Harris answered sharply — 

A A 



354 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

1 And my mind is made up. He goes to the Museum. 

I said, calmly — 

' The Museum may whistle when it gets him.' 

Harris retorted — 

' The widow may save herself the trouble of whistling, for I will see 
that she never gets him.' 

After some angry bandying of epithets, I said — 

1 It seems to me that you are taking on a good many airs aboiit 
these remains. I don't quite see what you've got to say about them ? ' 

' / ? I've got all to say about them. They'd never have been 
thought of if I hadn't found their opera-glass. The corpse belongs to 
me, and I'll do as I please with him.' 

I was leader of the Expedition, and all discoveries achieved by it 
naturally belonged to me. I was entitled to these remains, and could 
have enforced my right ; but rather than have bad blood about the 
matter, I said we would toss up for them. I threw heads and won. 
but it was a barren victory, for although we spent all the next day 
searching, we never found a bone. I cannot imagine what could ever 
have become of that fellow. 

The town in the valley is called Leuk or Leukerbad. We pointed 
our course toward it, down a verdant slope which was adorned with 
fringed gentians and other flowers, and presently entered the narrow 
alleys of the outskirts and waded toward the middle of the town 
through liquid ' fertiliser.' They ought to either pave that village or 
organise a ferry. 

Harris's body was simply a chamois-pasture; his person was 
populous with the little hungry pests ; his skin, when he stripped, was 
splotched like a scarlet fever patient's; so, when we were about to 
enter one of the Leukerbad inns, and he noticed its sign, i Chamois 
Hotel,' he refused to stop there. He said the chamois was plentiful 
enough, without hunting up hotels where they made a specialty of 
it. I was indifferent, for the chamois is a creature that will neither 
bite me nor abide with me : but to calm Harris, we went to the 
Hotel des Alpes. 

At the table d'hote we had this for an incident. A very grave 
man — in fact his gravity amounted to solemnity, and almost to 
austerity — sat opposite us, and he was ' tight,' but doing his best 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



355 



to appear sober. He took up a corked bottle of wine, tilted it over 
his glass a while, then set it out of the way with a contented look, and 
went on with his dinner. 

Presently he put his glass to his mouth, and of course found it 
empty. He looked puzzled and v - 
glanced furtively and suspiciously 
out of the corner of his eye at a 
benignant and unconscious old 
lady who sat at his right. Shook 
his head, as much as to say, ' No, 
she couldn't have done it.' He 
tilted the corked bottle over his 
glass again, meantime searching 
around with his watery eye to see 
if anybody was watching him. He 
ate a few mouthfuls, raised his 
glass to his lips, and of course it 
was still empty. He bent an 
injured and accusing side-gaze 
upon that unconscious old lady, 
which was a study to see. She 
went on eating and gave.no sign. 
He took up his glass and his bottle, 
with a wise private nod of his head, and set them gravely on the left- 
hand side of his plate — poured himself another imaginary drink — 
went to work with his knife and fork once more — presently lifted his 
glass with good confidence, and found it empty, as usual. 

This was almost a petrifying surprise. He straightened himself up 
in his chair and deliberately and sorrowfully inspected the busy old 
ladies at his elbows, first one and then the other. At last he softly 
pushed his plate away, set his glass directly in front of him, held on 
to it with his left hand, and proceeded to pour with his right. This 
time he observed that nothing came. He turned the bottle clear 
upside down; still nothing issued from it; a plaintive look came 
into his face, and he said, as if to himself, c He I They've got it all ! ' 
Then he set the bottle down, resignedly, and took the rest of his dinner 
dry. 

a a 2 




' they've got it all.' 



356 



.4 TRAMP ABROAD. 



It was at that table d'hote, too, that I had under inspection the 
largest lady I have ever seen in private life. She was over seven feet 
high, and magnificently proportioned. What had first called my 
attention to her was my stepping on an outlying flange of her foot, and 
hearing, from up toward the ceiling, a deep ' Pardon, m'sieu, but you 
encroach ! ' 

That was when we were coming through the hall, and the place 

was dim, and I could see 
her only vaguely. The 
thing which called my 
attention to her the second 
time was, that at a table 
beyond ours were two very 
pretty girls, and this great 
lady came in and sat down 
between them and me and 
blotted out the view. She 
had a handsome face, and 
she was very finely formed 
— perfectly formed, I should 
say. But she made every- 
body around her look trivial 
and commonplace. Ladies 
near her looked like 
children, and the men about 
her looked mean. They 
looked like failures; and 
they looked as if they felt 
so, too. She sat with her 
back to us. I never saw such a back in my life. I would have 
so liked to see the moon rise over it. The whole congregation waited, 
under one pretext or another, till she finished her dinner and went out ; 
they wanted to see her at her full altitude, and they found it worth 
tarrying for. She filled one's idea of what an empress ought to be, 
when she rose up in her unapproachable grandeur and moved superbly 
out of that place. 

We were not at Leuk in time to see her at her heaviest weight. 




MODEL FOK AN EMPKESS, 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



35J* 



She had suffered from corpulence, and had come there to get rid of 
her extra flesh in the baths. Five weeks of soaking — five uninterrupted 
hours of it every day — had accomplished her purpose and reduced her 
to the right proportions. 

Those baths remove fat, and also skin-diseases. The patients 
remain in the great tanks hours at a time. A dozen gentlemen and 
ladies occupy a tank together, and amuse themselves with rompings 
and various games. They have floating desks and tables, and they 




BATH HOUSES AT LEUK. 



read or lunch or play chess in water that is breast-deep. The 
tourist can step in and view this novel spectacle if he chooses. There's 
a poor-box, and he will have to contribute. There are several of 
these big' bathing-houses, and you can always tell when you are 
near one of them by the romping noises and shouts of laughter that 
proceed from it. The water is running water, and changes all the 
time, else a patient with a ringworm might take the bath with only a 



360 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

partial success, since while he was ridding himself of his ringworm lie 
might catch the itch. 

The next morning we wandered back up the green valley, leisurely, 
with the curving walls of those bare and stupendous precipices rising 
into the clouds before us. I had never seen a clean, bare precipice 
stretching up 5,000 feet above me before, and I never shall expect 
to see another one. They exist, perhaps, but not in places where one 
can easily get close to them. This pile of stone is peculiar. From its 
base to the soaring tops of its mighty towers, all its lines and all its 
details vaguely suggest human architecture. There are rudimentary 
bow windows, cornices, chimneys, demarcations of stories, &c. One 
could sit and stare up there and study the features and exquisite graces 
of this grand structure, bit by bit, and day after day, and never weary 
his interest. The termination, toward the town, observed in profile, is 
the perfection of shape. It comes down out of the clouds in a succession 
of rounded, colossal, terrace-like projections — a stairway for the gods : 
at its head spring several lofty storm-scarred towers, one above 
another, with faint films of vapour curling always about them like 
spectral banners. If there were a king whose realms included the 
whole world, here would be the palace meet and proper for such a 
monarch. He would only need to hollow it out and put in the electric 
light. He could give audience to a nation at a time under its roof. 

Our search for those remains having failed, we inspected with a glass 
the dim and distant track of an old-time avalanche that once swept 
down from some pine-grown summits behind the town and swept 
away the houses and buried the people ; then we struck down the 
road that leads toward the Rhone, to see the famous Ladders. These 
perilous things are built against the perpendicular face of a cliff two 
or three hundred feet high. The peasants, of both sexes, were 
climbing up and down them, with heavy loads on their backs. 1 
ordered Harris to make the ascent, so I could put the thrill and horror 
of it in my book, and he accomplished the feat successfully, through a 
sub-agent, for three francs, which I paid. It makes me shudder yet 
when I think of what I felt when I was clinging there between heaven 
and earth in the person of that proxy. At times the world swam 
around me, and I could hardly keep from letting go, so dizzying was 
the appalling danger. Many a person would have given up and 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 361 

descended, but I stuck to my task, and would not yield until I had 
accomplished it. I felt a just pride in my exploit, but I would not 
have repeated it for tne wealth of the world. I shall break my neck 
yet with some such foolhardy performance, for warnings never seem 
to have any lasting effect upon me. When the people of the hotel 
found that I had been climbing those crazy Ladders, it made me an 
object of considerable distinction. 

Next morning, early, we drove to the Rhone valley and took the 
train for Visp. There we shouldered our knapsacks and things, and 
set out on foot, in a tremendous rain, up the winding gorge, towards 
Zermatt. Hour after hour we slopped along, by the roaring torrent, 
and under noble Lesser Alps which were clothed in rich velvety 
green all the way up, and had little atomy Swiss homes perched 
upon grassy benches along their mist-dimmed heights. 

The rain continued to pour and torrent to boom, and we con- 
tinued to enjoy both. At the one spot where this torrent tossed its 
white mane highest, and thundered loudest, and lashed the big boulders- 
fiercest, the canton had done itself the honour to build the flimsiest 
wooden bridge that exists in the world. While we were walking 
over it, along with a party of horsemen, I noticed that even the larger 
rain-drops made it shake. I called Harris's attention to it, and he noticed 
it too. It seemed to me that if I owned an elephant that was a keep- 
sake, and I thought a good deal of him, I would think twice before 1 
would ride him over that bridge. 

We climbed up to the village of St. Nicholas, about half-past four 
in the afternoon, waded ankle-deep through the fertiliser-juice, and 
stopped at a new and nice hotel close by the little church. We 
stripped and went to bed, and sent our clothes down to be baked. 
All the horde of soaked tourists did the same. That chaos of clothing 
got mixed in the kitchen, and there were consequences. I did not 
get back the same drawers I sent down, when our things came up at 
6.15; I got a pair on a new plan. They were merely a pair of 
white ruffle-cuffed absurdities, hitched together at the top with a 
narrow band, and they did not come quite down to my knees. They 
were pretty enough, but they made me feel like two people, and discon- 
nected at that. The man must have been an idiot that got himself uj< 
like that, to rough it in the Swiss mountains. The shirt thej: 



G2 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



brought me was shorter than the drawers, and hadn't any sleeves to it 
— at least it hadn't anything more than what Mr. Darwin would call 
1 rudimentary ' sleeves ; these had ' edging ' around them, but the 
bosom was ridiculously plain. The knit silk under-shirt they brought 
me was on a new plan, and was really a sensible thing; it opened 
behind, and had pockets in it to put your shoulder-blades in ; but they 
did not seem to fit mine, and so I found it a sort of uncomfortable 
garment. They gave my bobtail coat to somebody else, and sent me 




RATHEIt MIaKjj Ui\ 

an ulster suitable lor a giraffe. I had to tie my collar on, because there 
was no button behind on that foolish little shirt which I described a 
while ago. 

When I was dressed lor dinner at 6.30, I was too loose in some 
places and too tight in others, and altogether I felt slovenly and ill— 
.conditioned. However, the people at the table d'hote were no better 
•off than I was ; they had everybody's clothes but their own on. A 
long stranger recognised his ulster as soon as he saw the tail of it 
following me in, but nobody claimed my shirts or my drawers, though 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



363 



I described them as well as I was able. I gave them to the chamber- 
maid that night when I went to bed, and she probably found the owner, 
for my own things were on a chair outside my door in the morning. 

There was a loveable English clergyman who did not get to the 
table d'hote at all. His breeches had turned up missing, and without 
any equivalent. He said he was not more particular than other 
people, but he had noticed that a clergyman at dinner without any 
breeches was almost sure to excite remark. 




'SLOVENLY,* 



364: 4 TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XXXVI, 

We did not over sleep at St. Nicholas. The church-bell began to ring 
at 4.30 in the morning, and from the length of time it continued to 
ring I judged that it takes the Swiss sinner a good while to get the 
invitation through his head. Most church-bells in the world are of 
poor quality, and have a harsh and rasping sound which upsets the 
temper and produces much sin, but the St. Nicholas bell is a good deal 
the worst one that has been contrived yet, and is peculiarly maddening 
in its operation. Still, it may have its right and its excuse to exist, for 
the community is poor and not every citizen can afford a clock, per- 
haps ; but there cannot be any excuse for our church-bells at home,, 
for there is no family in America without a clock, and consequently 
there is no fair pretext for the usual Sunday medley of dreadful sounds 
that issues from our steeples. There is much more profanity in 
America on Sunday than in all the other six days of the week put 
together, and it is of a more bitter and malignant character than the 
week-day profanity, too. It is produced by the cracked-pot clangour 
of the cheap church-bells. 

We build our churches almost without regard to cost ; we rear 
an edifice which is an adornment to the town, and we gild it, and 
fresco it, and mortgage it, and do everything we can think of to 
perfect it, and then spoil . it all by putting a bell on it which afflicts 
everybody who hears it, giving some the headache, others St. Vitus's 
dance, and the rest the blind -staggers. 

An American village at ten o'clock on a summer Sunday is the 
quietest and peacefullest and holiest thing in nature ; but it is a pretty 
different thing half an hour later. Mr. Poe's poem of the ' Bells ' 
stands incomplete to this day ; but it is well enough that it is so. 
for the public reciter or ' reader ' who goes around trying to imitate thi* 
sounds of the various sorts of bells with his voice would find himsel- 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



365 



"up a stump' when he got to the church-bell — as Joseph Addison 
would say. The church is always trying to get other people to reform ; 
it might not be a bad idea to reform 
itself a little, by way of example. It 
is still clinging to one or two things 
which were useful once, but which are 
not useful now, neither are they orna- 
mental. One is the bell-ringing to re- 
mind a clock- caked town that it is 
church-time, and another is the read- 
ing from the pulpit of a tedious list 
of ' notices ' which everybody who is 
interested has already read in the news- 
paper. The clergyman even reads the 
hymn through — a relic of an ancient 
time when hymn-books were scarce and 
costly ; but everybody has a hymn-book 
now, and so the public reading is no 
longer necessary. It is not merely un- 
necessary, it is generally painful; for 
the average clergyman could not fire 
into his congregation with a shot-gun 
and hit a worse reader than himself, 
unless the weapon scattered shamefully. 
I am not meaning to be flippant and 
irreverent, I am only meaning to be 
truthful. The average clergyman, in 
all countries and of all denominations, 
is a very bad reader. One would think 
he would at least learn how to read 
the Lord's Prayer, by-and-by, but it is 
not so. He races through it as if he 
thought the quicker he got it in the sooner it would be answered. 
A person who does not appreciate the exceeding value of pauses, and 
does not know how to measure their duration judiciously, cannot 
render the grand simplicity and dignity of a composition like that 
effectively. 




A SUNDAY MORNING'S DEMON. 



SCG A TRAMP ABROAD. 

We took a tolerably early breakfast, and tramped off toward Zermatt 
through the reeking lanes of the village, glad to get away from that 
bell. By-and-by we had a fine spectacle on our right. It was the 
warlike butt- end of a huge glacier, which looked down on us from 
an Alpine height which was well up in the blue sky. It was an asto- 
nishing amount of ice to be compacted together in one mass. We 
ciphered upon it and decided that it was not less than several hundred 
feet from the base of the wall of solid ice to the top of it — Harris 
believed it was really twice that. We judged that if St. Paul's, St. 
Peter's, the Great Pyramid, the Strasburg Cathedral, and the Capitol 
at Washington were clustered against that wall, a man sitting on its 
upper edge could not hang his hat on the top of any one of them with- 
out reaching down three or four hundred feet — a thing which, of 
course, no man could do. 

To me, that mighty glacier was very beautiful. I did not imagine 
that anybody could find fault with it ; but I was mistaken. Harris 
had been snarling for several days. He was a rabid Protestant, and 
he was always saying — 

'In the Protestant cantons you never see such poverty and dirt 
and squalor as you do in this Catholic one; you never see the lanes 
and alleys flowing with foulness ; you never see such wf etched little 
sties of houses ; you never see an inverted tin turnip on top of a church 
for a dome ; and as for a church-bell, why, you never hear a church- 
bell at all/ 

All this morning he had been finding fault, straight along. First 
it was with the mud. He said, ' It ain't muddy in a Protestant 
canton when it rains.' Then it was with the dogs : ' They don't have 
those lop-eared dogs in a Protestant canton.' Then it was with the 
roads : ' They don't leave the roads to make themselves in a Protestant 
canton, the people make them — and they make a road that is a road, 
too.' Next it was the goats : ' You never see a goat shedding tears 
in a Protestant canton — a goat, there, is one of the cheerfullest objects 
in nature.' Next it was the chamois : ' You never see a Protestant 
chamois act like one of these — they take a bite or two and go ; but 
these fellows camp with you and stay/ Then it was the guide-boards : 
* In a Protestant canton you couldn't get lost if you wanted to, but you 
never see a guide-board in a Catholic canton/ Next, * You never see 



A TRAMP ABROAD. BCT 

any flower -boxes in the windows, here — never anything but now and 
then a cat — a torpid one ; but you take a Protestant canton : windows 
perfectly lovely with flowers — and as for cats, there's just acres of them. 
These folks in this canton leave a road to make itself, and then fine you 
three francs if you " trot " over it — as if a horse could trot over such 
a sarcasm of a road.' Next about the goitre : ' They talk about goitre ! 
— I haven't seen a goitre in this whole canton that I couldn't put in a 
hat.' 

He had growled at everything, but I judged it would puzzle him 
to find anything the matter with this majestic glacier. I intimated 
as much ; but he was ready, and said with surly discontent — 

' You ought to see them in the Protestant cantons.' 

This irritated me. But I concealed the feeling, and asked — 

* What is the matter with this one ? ' 

'Matter? Why, it ain't in any kind of condition. They never 
take any care of a glacier here. The moraine has been spilling gravel 
around it, and got it all dirty.' 

' Why, man, they can't help that.' 

' They ? You're right. That is, they won't. They could if they 
wanted to. You never see a speck of dirt on a Protestant glacier. 
Look at the Rhone glacier. It is fifteen miles long, and seven hundred 
feet thick. If this was a Protestant glacier you wouldn't see it looking 
like this, I can tell you.' 

' That is nonsense. What would they do with it ? ' 

( They would whitewash it. They always do.' 

I did not believe a word of this, but rather than have trouble I 
let it go ; for it is a waste of breath to argue with a bigot. I even 
doubted if the Rhone glacier was in a Protestant canton ; but I did not 
knew, so I could not make anything by contradicting a man who would 
probably put me down at once with manufactured evidence. 

About nine miles from St. Nicholas we crossed a bridge over the 
raging torrent of the Visp, and came to a long strip of flimsy fencing 
which was pretending to secure people from tumbling over a perpendi- 
cular wall forty feet high and into the river. Three children were 
approaching ; one of them, a little girl about eight years old, was 
running ; when pretty close to us she stumbled and fell, and her feet 
shot under the rail of the fence and for a moment projected over the 



368 



A TBAMP ABROAD. 



siream. It gave us a sharp shock, tor we thought she was gone, sure, 
for the ground slanted steeply, and to save herself seemed a sheer im- 
possibility ; but she managed to scramble up, and ran by us laughing. 

We went forward and examined the place and saw the long track? 
which her feet had made in the dirt when they darted over the verge. 



*« 



111 




JUST SAVED. 



If she had finished her trip she would have struck some big rocks 
on the edge of the water, and then the torrent would have snatched 
her down- stream among the half -covered boulders, and she would have 
been pounded to pulp in two minutes. We had come exceedingly 
near witnessing her death. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. '6C9 

And iioav Harris's contrary nature and inborn selfishness were 
•strikingly manifested. He has no spirit of self-denial. He began 
straight off, and continued for an hour, to express his gratitude that 
the child was not destroyed. I never saw such a man. Tnat was the 
kind of person he was ; just so he was gratified, he never cared any- 
thing about anybody else. I had noticed that trait in him, over and 
over again. Often, of course, it was mere heedlessness, mere want of 
reflection. Doubtless this may have been the case in most instances, 
but it was not the less hard to bear on that account — and after all, 
its bottom, its groundwork, was selfishness. There is no avoiding 
that conclusion. In the instance under consideration, I did think the 
indecency of running on in that way might occur to him ; but no, 
the child was saved and he was glad, that was sufficient — he cared not 
a straw for my feelings, or my loss of such a literary plum, snatched 
from my very mouth at the instant it was ready to drop into it. His 
selfishness was sufficient to place his own gratification in being spared 
suffering clear before all concern for me, his friend. Apparently he did 
not once reflect upon the valuable details which would have fallen 
like a windfall to me : fishing the child out — witnessing the surprise of 
the family and the stir the thing would have made among the peasants — 
then a Swiss funeral — then the roadside monument, to be paid for 
by us and have our names mentioned in it. And we should have 
gone into Baedeker and been immortal. I was silent. I was too much 
hurt to complain. If he could act so, and be so heedless and so frivolous 
at such a time, and actually seem to glory in it, after all I had done 
for him, I would have cut my hand off before I would let him see that 
I was wounded. 

We were approaching Zermatt, consequently we were approaching 
the renowned Matterhorn. A month before this mountain had been 
only a name to us, but latterly we had been moving through a steadily 
thickening double row of pictures of it, done in oil, water, chromo, 
wood, steel, copper, crayon, and photography, and so it had at length 
become a shape to us — and a very distinct, decided, and familiar one, 
too. We were expecting to recognise that mountain whenever or 
wherever we should run across it. We were not deceived. The mon - 
arch was far away when we first saw him, but there was no such 
thing as mistaking him. He has the rare peculiarity of standing by 

£ B 



370 A TRAMP ABE AH 

himself. He is peculiarly steep, too, and is also most oddly shaped. 
He towers into the sky like a colossal wedge, with the upper, third 
of its blade bent a little to the left. The broad base of this monster 
wedge is planted upon a grand glacier-paved Alpine platform whose 
elevation is ten thousand feet above sea level ; as the wedge itself is 
some five thousand feet high, it follows that its apex is about fifteen 
thousand feet above sea level. So the whole bulk of this stately piece 
of rock, this sky-cleaving monolith, is above the line of eternal snow. 
Yet while all its giant neighbours have the look of being built of solid 
snow, from their waists up, the Matterhorn stands black and naked and 
forbidding the year round, or merely powdered or streaked with white 
in places, for its sides are so steep that the snow cannot stay there. 
Its strange form, its august isolation, and its majestic unkinship with its- 
own kind, make it, so to speak, the Napoleon of the mountain world. 
1 Grand, gloomy, and peculiar,' is a phrase which fits it as aptly as it 
fitted the great captain. 

Think of a monument a mile high, standing on a pedestal two- 
miles high ! This is what the Matterhorn is — a monument. Its office 
henceforth, for all time, will be to keep watch and ward over the secret 
resting-place of the young Lord Douglas, who in 1865 was precipitated 
from the summit over U precipice 4,000 feet high, and never. seen again. 
No man ever had such a monument as this before. The most imposing- 
of the world's other monuments are but atoms compared to it; and 
they will perish, and their places will pass from memory, but this will 
remain. 1 

A walk from St. Nicholas to Zermatt is a wonderful experience. 
Nature is built on a stupendous plan in that region. One marches 
continually between walls that are piled into the skies, with their 
upper heights broken into a confusion of sublime shapes that gleam 
white and cold against the background of blue ; and here and there 
one sees a big glacier displaying its grandeurs on the top of a precipice, 
or a graceful cascade leaping and flashing down the green declivities. 
1 The accident which cost Lord Douglas his life (see Chapter XLI.) also 
cost the lives of three other men. These three fell four-fifths of a mile, and 
their bodies were afterwards found lying side by side upon a glacier, whence they 
were borne to Zermatt and buried in the churchyard. The remains of Lord 
Douglas have never been found. The secret of his sepulchre, like that of Moses, 
must remain a mystery always. 










VIEW IN VALLEY OP ZERMATT. 
B B 2 



A TRAMP ABROAD. ^75 

There is nothing tame, or cheap, or trivial — it is all magnificent. 
That short valley is a picture gallery of a notable kind, for it contains 
no mediocrities ; from end to end the Creator has hung it with His 
masterpieces. 

We made Zermatt at three in the afternoon, nine hours out from 
St. Nicholas. Distance, by guide-book, twelve miles ; by pedometer, 
seventy-two. We were in the heart and home of the mountain-climbers 
now, as all visible things testified. The snow-peaks did not hold them- 
selves aloof, in aristocratic reserve; they nestled close around, in a 
friendly sociable way ; guides, with the ropes and axes, and other im- 
plements of their fearful calling slung about their persons, roosted in a 
long line upon a stone wall in front of the hotel, and waited for custo- 
mers; sun-burned climbers in mountaineering costume, and followed 
by their guides and porters, arrived from time to time, from break-neck 
expeditions among the peaks and glaciers of the High Alps ; male and 
female tourists, on mules, filed by in a continuous procession, hotel- 
ward-bound from wild adventures which would grow in grandeur 
every time the}' were described at the English or American fireside, 
and at last outgrow the possible itself. 

We were not dreaming ; this was not a make-believe home of the 
Alp-climber, created by our heated imaginations; no, for here was 
Mr. Girdlestone himself, the famous Englishman who hunts his way 
to the most formidable Alpine summits without a guide. I was not 
equal to imagining a Girdlestone ; it was all I could do to even realise 
him, while looking straight at him at short range. I would rather face 
whole Hyde Parks of artillery than the ghastly forms of death which 
he has faced among the peaks and precipices of the mountains. There 
is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous 
Alp ; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can 
find pleasure in it. I have not jumped to this conclusion; I have 
travelled to it per gravel train, so to speak. I have thought the 
thing all out, and am quite sure I am right. A born climber's appetite 
for climbing is hard to satisfy ; when it comes upon him he is like a 
starving man with a feast before him ; he may have other business on 
hand, but it must wait. Mr. Girdlestone had had his usual summer 
holiday in the Alps, and had spent it in his usual way, hunting for 
unique chances to break his neck ; his vacation was over, and his 



376 A TRAMP ABROAD, 

luggage packed for England, but all of a sudden a hunger had come upon 
him to climb the tremendous Weisshorn once more, for he had heard 
of a new and utterly impossible route up it. His baggage was unpacked 
at once, and now he and a friend, laden with knapsacks, ice-axes, 
coils of rope, and canteens of milk, were just setting out. They would 
spend the night high up among the snows, somewhere, and get up 
at two in the morning and finish the enterprise. I had a strong 
desire to go with them, but forced it down — a feat which Mr. Girdle- 
stone, with all his fortitude, could not do. 

Even ladies catch the climbing mania, and are unable to throw 
it off. A famous climber of that sex had attempted the Weisshorn a 
few days before our arrival, and she and her guides had lost their way 
in a snowstorm high up among the peaks and glaciers, and been forced 
to wander around a good while before they could find a way down. 
When this lady reached the bottom she had been on her feet twenty- 
three hours ! 

Our guides, hired on the Gemmi, were already at Zermatt when 
we reached there. So there was nothing to interfere with our getting 
up an adventure whenever we should choose the time and the object. 
I resolved to devote my first evening in Zermatt to studying up the 
subject of Alpine climbing, by way of preparation. 

I read several books, and here are some of the things I found out. 
One's shoes must be strong and heavy and have pointed hobnails in 
them. The alpenstock must be of the best wood, for if it should 
break loss of life might be the result. One should carry an axe to 
cut steps in the ice with, on the great heights. There must be a 
ladder, for there are steep bits of rock which can be surmounted with 
this instrument — or this utensil — but could not be surmounted without 
it ; such an obstruction has compelled the tourist to waste hours hunt- 
ing another route, when a ladder would have saved him all trouble. 
One must have from 150 to 500 feet of strong rope, to be used in 
lowering the party down steep declivities, which are too steep and 
smooth to be traversed in any other way. One must have a steel 
hook on another rope — a very useful thing ; for when one is ascending, 
and comes to a low bluff which is yet too high for the ladder, he 
swings this rope aloft like a lasso, the hook catches at the top of the 
bluff, and then the tourist climbs the rope hand over hand — being 



A TliAWP ABROAD. 



377 



always particular to try and forget that it the hook gives way he will 
never stop falling till he arrives in some part of Switzerland where 
they are not expecting him. Another important thing — there must 
be a rope to tie the whole party together with, so that if one falls from 
a mountain or down a 
bottomless chasm in a 
glacier, the others may 
brace back on the rope 
and save him. One must 
have a silk veil, to protect 
his face from snow, sleet, 
hail, and gale, and colour- 
ed goggles to protect his 
eyes from that dangerous 
enemy, snow- blindness. 
Finally, there must be 
some porters, to carry pro- 
visions, wine, and scienti- 
fic instruments, and also 
blanket bags for the party 
to sleep in. 

I closed my readings 
with a fearful adventure 
which Mr. Whymper once 
had on the Matterhorn 
when he was prowling 
around alone, 5,000 feet above the town of Briel. He was edging his 
way gingerly around the corner of a precipice where the upper edge 
of a sharp declivity of ice-glazed snow joined it. This declivity 
swept down a couple of hundred feet, into a gully which curved around 
and ended at a precipice 800 feet high, overlooking a glacier. His 
foot slipped, and he fell. He says: — ■ 

'My knapsack brought my head down first, and I pitched into 
some rocks about a dozen feet below ; they caught something, and 
tumbled me off the edge, head over heels, into the gully ; the baton 
was dashed from my hands, and I whirled downwards in a series of 
bounds, each, longer than the last; now over ice, now into rocks, strik- 




FITTED OUT. 



878 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



ing my head four or five times, each time with increased force. The 
last bound sent me spinning through the air in a leap of fifty or sixty 
feet, from one side of the gully to the other, and I struck the rocks, 
luckily, with the whole of my left side. They caught my clothes for a 
moment, and I fell back on to the snow with motion arrested. My 
head fortunately came the right side up, and a few frantic catches 
brought me to a halt in the neck of the gully and on the verge of the 
precipice. Baton, hat, and veil skimmed by and disappeared, and 




AN ALP-CKCIBEIt. 



the crash of the rocks — which I had started — as they fell on to the 
glacier, told how narrow had been the escape from utter destruction. 
As it was, I fell nearly 200 feet in seven or eight bounds. Ten feet 
more would have taken me in- one gigantic leap of 800 feet on to the 
glacier below. 

' The situation was sufficiently serious. The rocks could not be let 
go for a moment, and the blood was spirting out of more than twenty 
cuts. The most serious ones were in the head, and I vainly tried to 
close them with one hand, whilst holding on with the other. It was 
useless; the blood gushed out in blinding jets at each pulsation. At 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 379 

last, in a moment of inspiration, I kicked out a big lump of snow and 
stuck it as plaister on my head. The idea was a happy one, and the 
flow of blood diminished. Then, scrambling up, I got, not a moment 
too soon, to a place of safety, and fainted away. The sun was setting 
when consciousness returned, and it was pitch-dark before the Great 
Staircase was descended ; but by a combination of luck and care, the 
whole 4,700 feet of descent to Breil was accomplished without a slip, 
or once missing the way.' 

His wounds kept him a-bed some days. Then he got up and 
climbed that mountain again. That is the way with a true Alp-climber; 
the more fun he has, the more he wants. 



380 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

After I had finished my readings I was no longer myself; I was 
tranced, uplifted, intoxicated, by the almost incredible perils and 
adventures I had been following my authors through, and the triumphs 
I had been sharing with them. I sat silent some time, then turned to 
Harris, and said — 

' My mind is made up.' 

Something in my tone struck him ; and when he gianced at my eye 
and read what was written there, his face paled perceptibly. He 
hesitated a moment, then said — 

' Speak.' 

I answered with perfect calmness — 

' I WILL ASCEND THE RlFFELBERG.' 

I£ I had shot my poor friend he could not have fallen from his 
chair more suddenly. If I had been his father he could not have 
pleaded harder to get me to give up my purpose. But I turned a 
deaf ear to all he said. When he perceived at last that nothing could 
alter my determination he ceased to urge, and for a while the deep 
silence was broken only by his sobs. I sat in marble resolution, with 
my eyes fixed upon vacancy, for in spirit I was already wrestling with 
the perils of the mountains, and my friend sat gazing at me in adoring 
admiration through his tears. At last he threw himself upon me in a 
loving embrace, and exclaimed in broken tones — 

' Your Harris will never desert you. We will die together ! ' 

I cheered the noble fellow with praises, and soon his fears were 

forgotten, and he was eager for the adventure. He wanted to summon 

the guides at once and leave at two in the morning, as he supposed 

the custom was; but I explained that nobody was looking at that 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



381 



hour, and that the start in the dark was not usually made from the 
village, but from the first night's resting-place on the mountain side. 
I said we would leave the village at three or four p.m. on the morrow ; 
meantime he could notify the guides, and also let the public know of 
the attempt which we proposed to make. 

I went to bed, but not to sleep. No man can sleep when he is 
about to undertake one of these Alpine exploits. I tossed feverishly 
all night long, and was glad enough when I heard the clock strike half- 
past eleven, and knew it was time to get up for dinner. I rose jaded 
and rusty, and went to the noon meal, where I found myself the 
centre of interest and curiosity, for the news was already abroad. It is 
not easy to eat calmly when you are a lion, but it is very pleasant, 
nevertheless. 

As usual, at Zermatt, when a great ascent is about to be under- 
taken, everybody, native and foreign, laid aside his own projects and 
took up a good position to observe the start. The expedition consisted 
of 198 persons, including the mules, or 205, including the cows. Aa 
follows: — 



Chiefs of Service. 



Myself. 
Mr. Harris. 
17 Guides. 
4 Surgeons. 
1 Geologist. 

1 Botanist. 

3 Chaplains. 

2 Draftsmen. 
15 Barkeepers. 

1 Latinist. 



Subordinates. 



1 Veterinary Surgeon. 


1 Butler. 


12 Waiters. 


1 Footman. 


1 Barber. 


1 Head Cook. 


9 Assistants. 


4 Pastry Cooks. 


1 Confectionery Artist 



Transportation, etc. 



27 Porters. 
44 Mules. 
44 Muleteers. 



3 Coarse Washers and Ii oners, 

1 Fine ditto. 
7 Cows. 

2 Milkers. . 



Total, 154 men, 51 animals. Grand Total, 205. 



SS2 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Rations, etc. 

16 Cases Hams. 

2 Barrels Flour. 
22 Barrels Whisky. 

1 Barrel Sugar. 

1 Keg Lemons. 
2,000 Cigars. 

1 Barrel Pies. 

1 Ton of Pemraican. 
143 Pair Crutches. 

2 Barrels Arnica. 
1 Bale of Lint. 

27 Kegs Paregoric. 



Apparatus, 

25 Spring Mattresses. 
2 Hair ditto. 

Bedding for same. 
2 Mosquito Nets. 
29 Tents. 

Scientific Instruments. 
97 Ice-axes. 
5 Cases Dynamite. 
7 Cans Nitro-glycerine. 
22 40-foot Ladders. 

2 Miles of Rope. 
154 Umbrellas. 



It was full four o'clock in the afternoon before my cavalcade was 
entirely ready. At that hour it began to move. In point of numbers 
and spectacular effect it was the most imposing expedition that had 
ever marched from Zermatt. 

I commanded the chief guide to arrange the men and animals in 
single file, twelve feet apart, and lash them all together on a strong 
rope. He objected that the first two miles was a dead level, with 
plenty of room, and that the rope was never used except in very 
dangerous places. But I would not listen to that. My reading had 
taught me that many serious accidents had happened in the Alps simply 
from not having the people tied up soon enough ; I was not going to add 
one to the list. The guide then obeyed my order. 

When the procession stood at ease, roped together, and ready to 
move, I never saw a finer sight. It was 3,122 feet long — over half 
a mile ; every man but Harris and me was on foot, and had on his 
green veft and his blue goggles, and his white rag around his hat, 
and his coil of rope over one shoulder and under the other, and his ice- ! 
axe in his belt, and carried his alpenstock in his left hand, his 
umbrella (closed) in his right, and his crutches slung at his back. 
The burdens of the pack mules and the horns of the cows were decked 
with the Edelweiss and the Alpine rose. 

I and my agent were the only persons mounted. We were in the 
post of danger in the extreme rear, and tied securely to five guides 
apiece. Our armour-bearers carried our ice-axes, alpenstocks, and 



A Tit AMP ABROAD. 



333 



other implements for us. We were mounted upon very small donkeys, 
aa a measure of safety ; in time of peril we could straighten our 
legs and stand up, and let the donkey walk from under. Still, I 
cannot recommend this sort of animal — at least for excursions of mere 
pleasure — because his ears interrupt the view. I and my agent 
possessed the regulation mountaineering costumes, but concluded to 
leave them behind. Out of resDect for the great numbers of tourists of 
both sexes who would be assembled in front of the hotels to see us 




ALL READY. 

pass, and also out of respect for the many tourists whom we expected 
to encounter on our expedition, we decided to make the ascent in even- 
ing dress. 

At fifteen minutes past four I gave the command to move, and 
my subordinates passed it along the line. The great crowd in front of 
the Monte Rosa hotel parted in twain, with a cheer, as the procession 
approached, and as the head of it was filing by I gave the order, 
* Unlimber — make ready — hoist ! ' and with one impulse up went my 
half mile of umbrellas. It was a beautiful* sight, and a total surprise to 



384 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



the spectators. Nothing like that had ever been seen in th 
before. The applause it brought forth was deeply gratifying 
and I rode by with my plug hat in my 
hand to testify my appreciation of it. 
It was the only testimony I could offer, 
for I was too full to speak. 

We watered the caravan at the cold 
stream which rushes down a trough near 
the end of the village, and soon after- 
ward left the haunts of civilisation behind 
as. About half -past five o'clock we 
arrived at a bridge which spans the 
Visp, and after throwing 



e Alps 
to me, 



over a detachment to 
see if it was safe, the 
caravan crossed without 
accident. The way now 
led, by a gentle ascent, 
carpeted with fresh 
green grass, to the 
church of Winkelmat- 
ten. Without stopping 
to examine this edifice, 
I executed a flank 
movement to the right 
and crossed the bridge 
over the Findelenbach, after first 
testing its strength. Here I 
deployed to the right again, and 
presently entered an inviting 
stretch of meadow land which 
was unoccupied save hy a 
couple of deserted huts toward 
its furthest extremity. These meadows of- 
fered an excellent camping -place. We 
pitched our tents, supped, established a pro- 
per guard, recorded the events of the day, and 
then went to bed. 




THE .MARCH. 




c-c 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 387 

We rose at two in the morning and dressed by candle-light. It 
was a dismal and chilly business. A few stars were shining, but the 
general heavens were overcast, and the great shaft of the Matterhorn 
was draped in a sable pall of clouds. The chief guide advised a 
delay , he said he feared it was going to rain. We waited until nine 
o'clock, and then got away in tolerably clear weather. 

Our course led up some terrific steeps, densely wooded with larches 
and cedars, and traversed by paths which the rains had guttered and 
which were obstructed by loose stones. To add to the danger and in- 
convenience, we were constantly meeting returning tourists on foot or 
horseback, and as constantly being crowded and battered by ascending 
tourists who were in a hurry and wanted to get by. 

Our troubles thickened. About the middle of the afternoon the 
seventeen guides called a halt and held a consultation. After consult- 
ing an hour they said their first suspicion remained intact — that is to 
say, they believed they were lost. I asked if they did not know it ? 
No, they said, they couldn't absolutely know whether they were lost or 
not, because none of them had ever been in that part of the country 
before. They had a strong instinct that they were lost, but they had 
no proofs, except that they did not know where they were. They had 
met no tourists for some time, and they considered that a suspicious 
sign. 

Plainly we were in an ugly fix. The guides were naturally un- 
willing to go alone and seek a way out of the difficulty ; so we all went 
together. For better security we moved slowly and cautiously, for 
the forest was very dense. We did not move up the mountain, but 
around it, hoping to strike across the old trail. Toward nightfall, 
when we were about tired out, we came up against a rock as big 
as a cottage. This barrier took all the remaining spirit out of the 
men, and a panic of fear and despair ensued. They moaned and wept, 
and said they should never see their homes and their dear ones again. 
Then they began to upbraid me for bringing them upon this fatal 
expedition. Some even muttered threats against me. 

Clearly it was no time to show weakness. So I made a speech 
in which I said that other Alp-climbers had been in as perilous a 
position as this, and yet by courage and perseverance had escaped. I 
promised to stand by them ; I promised to rescue them. I closed by 

cc 2 



388 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



saying we had plenty of provisions to maintain us for quite a siege; 
and did they suppose Zermatt would allow half a mile of men and 
mules to mysteriously disappear during any considerable time, right 
above their noses, and make no inquiries ? No, Zermatt would send 
out searching expeditions, and we should be saved. 

This speech had a great effect. The men pitched the tents with 
some little show of cheerfulness, and we were snugly under cover when 
the night shut down. I now reaped the reward of my wisdom in pro- 

\viding one article which is not mentioned in 
any book of Alpine adventure but this. I 
refer to the paregoric. But for that beneficent 
drug, not one of those men would have slept 
a moment during that fearful night. But 
for that gentle persuader they must have tossed, 
unsoothed, the night through ; for the whisky 
was for me. Yes, they would have risen in 
the morning unfitted for their heavy task. 
As it was, everybody slept but my agent and 
me — only we two and the barkeepers. I 
would not permit myself to sleep at such a 
time. I considered myself responsible for all 
those lives. I meant to be on hand and- 
ready, in case of avalanches. I am aware 
now that there were no avalanches up there, 
but I did not know it then. 

We watched the weather all through that 
awful night, and kept an eye on the baro- 
meter, to be prepared for the least change. 
There was not the slightest change re- 
corded by the instrument, during the whole 
^ 0000m y% k time. Words cannot describe the comfort 

{_ ^/ \ that that friendly, hopeful, steadfast thing 

was to me in that season of trouble. It 
was a defective barometer, and had no hand 
but the stationary brass pointer, but I did 
not know that until afterwards. If I should be in such a situatioD 
again, I should not wish for any barometer but that one. 








THE HOOK. 



A Til AMP ABROAD. 389 

All hands rose at two in the morning and took breakfast, and as 
soon as it was light we roped ourselves together and went at that rock. 
For some time we tried the hook-rope and other means of scaling it, 
but without success — that is, without perfect success. The hook 
caught once, and Harris started up it, hand over hand, but the hold 
broke, and if there had not happened to be a chaplain sitting under- 
neath at the time, Harris would certainly have been crippled. As it 
was, it was the chaplain. He took to his crutches, and I ordered the 
hook-rope to be laid aside. It was too dangerous an implement where 
so many people were standing around. 

We were puzzled for a while; then somebody thought of the 
ladders. One of these was leaned against the rock, and the men went 
up it tied together in couples. Another 
ladder was sent up for use in descend- 
ing. At the end of half an hour every- 
body was over, and that rock was 
conquered. We gave our first grand 
shout of triumph. But the joy was 
short-lived, for somebody asked how we 
were going to get the animals over. 

This was a serious difficulty; in 
fact, it was an impossibility. The 
courage of the men began to waver 
immediately ; once more we were 
threatened with a panic. But when 
the danger was most imminent, we 
were saved in a mysterious way. A ' «^m**— -c--— — ' 

~ 1 -L-T-t-J - j. j j. j- THE DISABLLD CHAPLAIN. 

mule which had attracted attention 

from the beginning by its disposition to experiment, tried to eat a five- 
pound can of nitro-glycerine. This happened right alongside the rock. 
The explosion threw us all to the ground, and covered us with dirt and 
debris; it frightened us extremely, too, for the crash it made was 
deafening, and the violence of the shock made the ground tremble. 
However, we were grateful, for the rock was gone. Its place was 
occupied by a new cellar, about thirty feet across, by fifteen feet deep. 
The explosion was heard as far as Zermatt ; and an hour and a half 
afterwards many citizens of that town were knocked down and quite 




390 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 




TRYING- EXPERIMENTS. 



seriously injured by descending portions of mule meat, frozen solid. 
This shows, better than any estimate in figures, how high the experi- 
menter went. 

We had nothing to do now but bridge the cellar and proceed on 
our way. With a cheer the men went at their work. I attended 

to the engineering my- 
self. I appointed a 
strong detail to cut 
down trees with ice- 
axes and trim them for 
piers to support the 
bridge. This was a 
slow business, for ice- 
axes are not good to 
cut wood with. 1 
caused my piers to be 
firmly set up in ranks, 
in the cellar, and upon 
them I laid six of my 
forty-foot ladders, side by side, and laid six more on top of them. 
Upon this bridge I caused a bed of boughs to be spread, and on top of 
the boughs a bed of earth six inches deep. I stretched ropes upon 
either side to serve as railings, and then my bridge was complete. A 
train of elephants could have crossed it in safety and comfort. By 
nightfall the caravan was on the other side, and the ladders taken up. 

Next morning we went on in good spirits for a while, though our 
way was slow and difficult, by reason of the steep and rocky nature of 
the ground and the thickness of the forest ; but at last a dull despon- 
dency crept into the men's faces, and it was apparent that not only they, 
but even the guides, were now convinced that we were lost. The 
fact that we still met no tourists was a circumstance that was but too 
significant. Another thing seemed to suggest that we were not only 
lost, but very badly lost; for there must surely be- searching parties 
on the road before this time, yet we had seen no sign of them. 

Demoralisation was spreading ; something must be done, and done 
quickly too. Fortunately, I am not unfertile in expedients. I con- 
trived one now which commended itself to all, for it promised well. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



391 



I took three-quarters of a mile of rope and fastened one end of it around 
the waist of a guide, and told him to go and find the road, whilst the 
caravan waited. I instructed him to guide himself back by the rope, 
in case of failure ; in case of success, he was to give the rope a series 
of violent jerks, whereupon the Expedition would go to him at once. 
He departed, and in two minutes had disappeared among the trees. I 
paid out the rope myself, while every- 
body watched the crawling thing with 
ciiger eyes. The rope crept away quite 
slowly, at times, at other times with some 
briskness. Twice or thrice we seemed 
to get the signal, and a shout was just 
ready to break from the men's lips when 
they perceived it was a false alarm. But 
at last, when over half a mile of rope had 
slidden away, it stopped gliding and stood 
absolutely still — one minute — two minutes 
— three — while we held our breath and 
watched. 

Was the guide resting ? Was he 
scanning the country from some high 

• ^ w l. • ••■ r i SAVED! SAVED! 

point : Was he inquiring of a chance 

mountaineer? Stop — had he fainted from excess of fatigue and 

anxiety ? 

This thought gave us a shock. I was in the very act of detailing 
an expedition to succour him, when the cord was assailed with 
a series of such frantic jerks that I could hardly keep hold of it. 
The huzza that went up, then, was good to hear. ' Saved! saved ! ' was 
the word that rang out, all down the long rank of the caravan. 

We rose up and started at once. We found the route to be good 
enough for a while, but it began to grow difficult, by-and-by, and this 
feature steadily increased. When we judged we had gone half a mile, 
we momently expected to see the guide ; but no, he was not visible 
anywhere; neither was he waiting, for the rope was still moving, 
consequently he was doing the same. This argued that he had not 
found the road yet, but was marching to it with some peasant. There 
was nothing for us to do but plod along, and this we did. At the 




392 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



end of three hours we were still plodding. This was not only mysteri- 
ous, but exasperating. And very fatiguing, too ; for we had tried 
hard, along at first, to catch up with the guide, but had only fagged 
ourselves in vain ; for although he was travelling slowly he was yet 
able to go faster than the hampered caravan over such ground. 

At three in the afternoon we were nearly dead with exhaus- 
tion — and still the rope was slowly gliding out. The murmurs 
against the guide had been growing steadily, and at last they were 
become loud and savage. A mutiny ensued. The men refused to 
proceed. They declared that we had been travelling over and 
over the same ground all day, in a kind of circle. They demanded 




TWENTY MINUTES' WOEK. 

that our end of the rope be made fast to a tree, so as to halt the guide 
until we could overtake him and kill him. This was not an unreason- 
able requirement, so I gave the order. 

As soon as the rope was tied, the Expedition moved forward with 
that alacrity which the thirst for vengeance usually inspires. But after 
a tiresome march of almost half a mile, we came to a hill covered 
thick with a crumbly rubbish of stones, and so steep that no man of us 
all was now in a condition to climb it. Every attempt failed, and ended 
in crippling somebody. Within twenty minutes I had five men on 
crutches. Whenever a climber tried to assist himself by the rope, it 
yielded and let him tumble backwards. The frequency of this result 
suggested an idea to me. I ordered the caravan to 'bout face and form 



.1 TRAMP ABROAD. 



393 



in marching order; I then made the tow-rope fast to the rear mule, 
and gave the command — 

i Mark time — by the right flank — forward — march ! ' 
The procession began to move, to the impressive strains of a battle 
chant, and I said to myself, 'Now, if the rope don't break, I judge this 
will fetch that guide into the camp.' I watched the rope gliding down 
the hill, and presently when I was all fixed for triumph I was confronted 
by a bitter disappointment : there was no guide tied to the rope, it was 
only a very indignant old black ram. The fury of the baffled Expe- 
dition exceeded all bounds. They even wanted to wreak their un- 




reasoning vengeance on this innocent dumb brute. But I stood between 
them and their prey, menaced by a bristling wall of ice-axes and 
alpenstocks, and proclaimed that there was but one road to this murder, 
and it was directly over my corse. Even as I spoke I saw that my doom 
was sealed, except a miracle supervened to divert these madmen from 
their fell purpose. I see that sickening wall of weapons now; I see 
that advancing host as I saw it then, I see the hate in those cruel eyes; 
I remember how I drooped my head upon my breast; I feel again the 
sudden earthquake shock in my rear, administered by the very ram I 



894 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



was sacrificing myself to save ; I hear once more the typhoon of 
laughter that burst from the assaulting column as I clove it from 
van to rear like a Sepoy shot from a Rodman gun. 

I was saved. Yes, I was saved, and by the merciful instinct of in- 
gratitude which nature had planted in the breast of that treacherous 
beast. The grace which eloquence had failed to work in those 
men's hearts had been wrought by a laugh. The ram was set free and 
my life was spared. 

We lived to find out that that guide had deserted us as soon as he 
had placed a half-mile between himself and us. To avert suspicion, 
he had judged it best that the line should continue to move ; so he 

caught that ram, and at the time 
that he was sitting on it making 
the rope fast to it, we were imagi- 
ning that he was lying in a swoon,, 
overcome by 
fatigue and 
distre ss. 
When he al- 
lowed the ram 
to get up, it 
fell to plung- 
ing around, 
trying to rid 




fttt.lfa^fi 



THE MIRACLE. itself of the 

rope, and this was the signal which we had risen up with glad shouts 
to obey. We had followed this ram round and round in a circle all 
day — a thing which was proven by the discovery that we had watered 
the Expedition seven times at one and the same spring in seven hours. 
As expert a woodman as I am, I had somehow failed to notice this 
until my attention was called to it by a hog. This hog was always 
wallowing there, and as he was the only hog we saw, his frequent re- 
petition, together with his unvarying similarity to himself, finally 
caused me to reflect that he must be the same hog, and this led me 
to the deduction that this must be the same spring also — which indeed 
it was. 

I made a note of this curious thing, as showing in a striking manner 



A TIIAMP ABROAD. 



395 



the relative difference between glacial action and the action of the 
hog. It is now a well-established fact that glaciers move ; I consider 
that my observations go to show, with equal conclusiveness, that a hog 
in a spring does not move. I shall be glad to receive the opinions of 
other observers upon this point. 

To return, for an explanatory moment, to that guide, and then I 
shall be done with him. After leaving the ram tied to the rope, 
he had wandered at large a while, and then happened to run across a 
cow. Judging that a cow would naturally know more than a guide, he 
took her by the tail, and the result justified his judgment. She nibbled 
her leisurely way down-hill till it was near milking time ; then she 
struck for home and towed him into Zermatt. 




4«f**f? 



THE NEW GUIDE. 



306 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

We went into camp on that wild spot to which that ram had brought 
us. The men were greatly fatigued. Their conviction that we were 
lost was forgotten in the cheer of a good supper, and before the reac- 
tion had a chance to set in, I loaded them up with paregoric and put 
them to bed. 

Next morning I was considering in my mind our desperate situa- 
tion and trying to think of a remedy, when Harris came to me with a 
Baedeker map which showed conclusively that the mountain we were 
on was still in Switzerland — yes, every part of it was in Switzerland. 
So we were not lost, after all. This was an immense relief; it lifted 
the weight of two such mountains from my breast. I immediately 
had the news disseminated and the map exhibited. The effect was 
wonderful. As soon as the men saw with their own eyes that they 
knew where they were, and that it was only the summit that was lost 
and not themselves, they cheered up instantly and said with one accord, 
let the summit take care of itself, they were not interested in its 
troubles. 

Our distresses being at an end, I now determined to rest the men 
in camp and give the scientific department of the Expedition a chance. 
First I made a barometric observation, to get our altitude, but I could 
not perceive that there was any result. I knew, by my scientific reading, 
* that either thermometers or barometers ought to be boiled, to make 
them accurate ; I did not know which it was, so I boiled both. There 
was still no result ; so I examined these instruments and discovered that 
they possessed radical blemishes : the barometer had no hand but the 
brass pointer, and the ball of the thermometer was stuffed with tin 
foil. I might have boiled those things to rags, and never found out any- 
thing. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



397 



n^-A 




SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ES. 



I hunted up another barometer ; it was new and perfect. I boiled 
it half an hour in a pot of bean soup which the cooks were making 
The result was unexpected : the 
instrument was not affected at all, 
but there was such a strong baro- 
meter taste to the soup that the 
head cook, who was a most con- 
scientious person, changed its 
name in the bill of fare. The dish 
was so greatly liked by all, that 
I ordered the cook to have baro- 
meter soup every day. It was 
believed that the barometer might , 
eventually be injured, but I did .<^A£\ 
not care for that. I had demon- y _^Mt^ 
strated to my satisfaction that it^- — 
could not tell how high a moun- 
tain was, therefore I had no real 
use for it. Changes of the weather I could take care of without it ; T 
did not wish to know when the weather was going to be good ; what I 
wanted to know was when it was going to be bad, and this I could find 
out from Harris's corns. Harris had had his corns tested and regu- 
lated at the government observatory in Heidelberg, and one could 
depend upon them with confidence. So I transferred the new barometer 
to the cooking department, to be used for the official mess. It was found 
that even a pretty fair article of soup could be made with the defective 
barometer ; so I allowed that one to be transferred to the subordinate 
messes. 

I next boiled the thermometer, and got a most excellent result ; 
the mercury went up to about 200° Fahrenheit. In the opinion of 
the other scientists of the Expedition, this seemed to indicate that 
we had attained the extraordinary altitude of 200,000 feet above sea 
level. Science places the line of eternal snow at about 10,000 feet 
above sea level. There was no snow where we were, consequently it 
was proven that the eternal snow line ceases somewhere above the 
10,000 foot level and does not begin any more. This was an interest- 
ing fact, and one which had not been observed by any observer before, 



398 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

It was as valuable as interesting, too, since it would open up the 
deserted summits of the highest Alps to population and agriculture. 
It was a proud thing to be where we were, yet it caused us a pang to 
reflect that but for that ram we might just as well have been 200,000 
feet higher. 

The success of my last experiment induced me to try an experiment 
with my photographic apparatus. I got it out, and boiled one of my 
■cameras, but the thing was a failure : it made the wood swell up and 
burst, and I could not see that the lenses were any better than they 
were before. 

I now concluded to boil a guide. It might improve him, it could 
not impair his usefulness. But I was not allowed to proceed. Guides 
have no feeling for science, and this one would not consent to be made 
uncomfortable in its interest. 

In the midst of my scientific work, one of those needless accidents 
happened which are always occurring among the ignorant and thought- 
less. A porter shot at a chamois and missed it and crippled the 
Latinist. This was not a serious matter to me, for a Latinist's duties 
are as well performed on crutches as otherwise — but the fact remained 
that if the Latinist had not happened to be in the way a mule would 
have got that load. That would have been quite another matter, lor 
when it comes down to a question of value there is a palpable difference 
between a Latinist and a mule. I could not depend on having a 
Latinist in the right place every time; so, to make things safe, I 
ordered that in future the chamois must not be hunted within the 
limits of the camp with any other weapon than the forefinger. 

My nerves had hardly grown quirt after this affair when they got 
another shake-up — one which utterly unmanned me for a moment : 
a rumour swept suddenly through the camp that one of the barkeepers 
had fallen over a precipice. 

However, it turned out that it was only a chaplain. I had laid 
in an extra force of chaplains, purposely to be prepared for emergencies 
like this, but by some unaccountable oversight had come away rather 
short-handed in the matter of barkeepers. 

On the following morning we moved on, well refreshed and in good 
spirits. I remember this day with peculiar pleasure, because it saw 
our road restored to us. Yes, we found our road again, and in quite 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



399 



an extraordinary way. We had plodded along some two hours and a 
half, when we came up against a solid mass of rock about twenty 
feet high. I 

did not need - 

to be in- 
structed by a 
mule this time. 
— I was al- 
ready begin- 
ning to know 
more than any 
mule in the 
Expedition. — 
I at once put 
in a blast of 
dynamite, and 
lifted that rock 
out of the way. 
But to my sur- 
prise and mor- 
tification, I 
found that 
there had been 
a chalet on top 
of it. 

I picked up 
such members 
of the family 
as fell in my 
vicinity, and 
subordinatesof 
my corps col- 
lected the rest.' 
None of these 
poor people 

were injured, happily, but they were much annoyed. I explained to 
the head chaleteer just how the thing happened, and that I was only 




MOUNTAIN CHALET. 



400 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

searching for the road, and would certainly have given him timely 
notice if I had known he was up there. I said I had meant no harm, 
and hoped I had not lowered myself in his. estimation by raising him 
a few rods in the air. I said many other judicious things, and finally 
when I offered to rebuild his chalet, and pay for breakages, and throw 
in the cellar, he was mollified and satisfied. He hadn't any cellar 
at all, before ; he would not have as good a view, now, as formerly, but 
what he had lost in view he had gained in cellar, by exact measure- 
ment. He said there wasn't another hole like that in the mountains — 
and he would have been right if the late mule had not tried to eat up 
the nitro-glycerine. 

I put a hundred and sixteen men at work, and they rebuilt the 
chalet from its own debris in fifteen minutes. It was a good deal more 
picturesque than it was before, too. The man said we were now on the 
Feli-Stutz, above the Schwegmatt — information which I was glad to get, 
since it gave us our position to a degree of particularity which we had 
not been accustomed to for a day or so. We also learned that we were 
standing at the foot of the Kiffelberg proper, and that the initial chapter 
of our work was completed. 

We had a fine view, from here, of the energetic Visp, as it makes 
its first plunge into the world from under a huge arch of solid ice, worn 
through the foot- wall of the great Gorner Glacier; and we could also 
see the Furggenbach, which is the outlet of the Furggen Glacier. 

The mule-road to the summit of the Riffelberg passed right in 
front of the chalet, a circumstance which we almost immediately 
noticed, because a procession of tourists was filing along it pretty 
much all the time. 1 The chaleteer's business consisted in furnishing 
refreshments to tourists. My blast had interrupted this trade for a 
few minutes, by breaking all the bottles on the place ; but I gave the 
man a lot of whisky to sell for Alpine champagne, and a lot of vinegar 
which would answer for Rhine wine, consequently trade was soon as 
brisk as ever. 

Leaving the Expedition outside to rest, I quartered myself in the 
chalet, with Harris, purposing to correct my journals and scientific 

1 ' Pretty much ' may not be elegant English, but it is high time it was. 
There is no elegant word or phrase which means just what it means. — M. T. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 401 

observations before continuing the ascent. I had hardly begun my 
work when a tall, slender, vigorous American youth of about twenty- 
three, who was on his way down the mountain, entered and came 
toward me with that breezy self-complacency which is the adolescent's 
idea of the well-bred ease of the man of the world. His hair was short 
and parted accurately in the middle, and he had all the look of an 
American person who would be likely to begin his signature with an 
initial, and spell his middle name out. He introduced himself, smiling 
a smirky smile borrowed from the courtiers of the stage, extended a 
fair-skinned talon, and whilst he gripped my hand in it he bent his 
body forward three times at the hips, as the stage- courtier does, and 
said in the airiest and most condescending and patronising way — I 
quote his exact language — 

1 Very glad to make your acquaintance, 'm sure ; very glad indeed, 
assure you. I've read all your little efforts and greatly admired them, 
and when I heard you were here, I .... ' 

I indicated a chair, and he sat down. This grandee was the grand- 
son of an American of considerable note in his day, and not wholly 
forgotten yet — a man who came so near being a great man that he was 
quite generally accounted one while he lived. 

I slowly paced the floor, pondering scientific problems, and heard 
this conversation : — 

Grandson. First visit to Europe? 

Harris. Mine ? Yes. 

G. S. (With a soft reminiscent sigh suggestive of bygone joys 
that may be tasted in their freshness but once.) Ah, I know what 
it is to you. A first visit ! — ah, the romance of it ! I wish I could 
feel it again. 

H. Yes, I find it exceeds all my dreams. It is enchantment. I 
go ... . 

G. S. (With a dainty gesture of the hand signifying, ' Spare me 
your callow enthusiasms, good friend.') Yes, / know, I know ; you go 
to cathedrals, and exclaim ; and you drag through league-long picture- 
galleries and exclaim ; and you stand here, and there, and yonder, 
upon historic ground, and continue to exclaim ; and you are permeated 
with your first crude conceptions of Art, and are proud and happy. 

D D 



402 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Ah, yes, proud and happy — that expresses it. Yes, yes, enjoy it — it 
is ri#ht — it is an innocent revel. 




II. And 



you 



Don't you do these 
things now ? 

G. S. I ! Oh, 
that is very good ! 
My dear sir, "when 
you are as o]d a 
traveller as I am, 
you will not ask such 
a question as that. I 
visit the regulation 
gallery, moon around 
the regulation cathe- 
dral, do the worn 
round of the regula- 
tion sights, yet ? — 
Excuse me ! 

H. Well, what 
Z do you do, then ? 

G. S. Do? I flit 

C — and flit — for I am 

^ ever on the wing — 

"" but I avoid the herd. 

To-day I am in 

Paris, to-morrow in 

Berlin, anon in Rome; but you would look for me in vain in the 

-. galleries of the Louvre or the common resorts of the gazers in those 

I other capitals. If you would find me, you must look in the unvisited 

nooks and corners where others never think of going. One day you 

will find me making myself at home in some obscure peasant's cabin, 

another day you will find me in some forgotten castle, worshipping 

some little gem of art which the careless eye has overlooked and which 

the inexperienced would despise ; again you will find me a guest in 

the inner sanctuaries of palaces while the herd is content to get a hurried 

glimpse of the unused chambers by feeing a servant. 



THE GRANDSOI 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 403 

H. You are a guest in such places ? 

£. £. And a welcome one. 

#. It is surprising. How does it come ? 

G. S. My grandfather's name is a passport to all the courts in 
Europe. I have only to utter that name and every door is open to me. 
I nit from court to court at my own free will and pleasure, and am 
always welcome. I am as much at home in the palaces of Europe as 
you are among your relatives. I know every titled person in Europe, 
I think. I have my pockets full of invitations all the time. I am 
under promise now to go to Italy, where I am to be the guest of a suc- 
cession of the noblest houses in the land. In Berlin my life is a 
•continued round of gaiety in the Imperial palace. It is the same wher- 
ever I go. 

H. It must be very pleasant. But it must make Boston seem a little 
slow when you are at home. 

G. S. Yes, of course it does. But I don't go home much. There's 
no life there — little to feed a man's higher nature. Boston's very 
narrow, you know. She doesn't know it, and you couldn't convince 
her of it ; so 1 say nothing when I'm there : where's the use ? Yes, 
Boston is very narrow, but she has such a good opinion of herself that 
she can't see it. A man who has travelled as much as I have, and seen 
;is much of the world, sees it plain enough, but he can't cure it, you 
know, so the best way is to leave it and seek a sphere which is more 
in harmony with his tastes and culture. 1 run across there once a 
year perhaps, when I have nothing important on hand, but I'm very 
soon back again. I spend my time in Europe. 

H. I see. You map out your plans and 

G. S. No, excuse me. I don't map out any plans. I simply follow 
the inclination of the day. I am limited by no ties, no requirements; 
I am not bound in any way. I am too old a traveller to hamper 
myself with deliberate purposes. I am simply a traveller — an inveterate 
traveller — a man of the world, in a word — I can call myself by no 
other name. I do not say, ' I am going here, or I am going there ; ' I 
say nothing at all, I only act. For instance, next week you may find 
me the guest of a grandee of Spain, or you may find me off fur Venice, 
or flitting toward Dresden. I shall probably go to Egypt presently ; 
friends will say to friends, ' He is at the Nile cataracts ; ' and at that 

DD 2 



404 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



very moment they will be surprised to learn that I'm away off yonder 
in India somewhere. I am a constant surprise to people. They are 
always saying, ' Yes, he was in Jerusalem when we heard of him last, 
but goodness knows where he is now.' 

Presently the Grandson rose to leave — discovered he had an appoint- 
ment with some Emperor, perhaps. He did his graces over again : 
gripped me with one talon, at arm's length, pressed his hat against his 
stomach with the other, bent his body in the middle three times, mur- 
muring — 

'Pleasure, 'm sure; great pleasure, 'm sure. Wish you much 
success.' 

Then he removed his gracious presence. It is a great and solemn, 
thing to have a grandfather. 

I have not purposed to misrepresent this boy in any way, for what 
little indignation he excited in me soon passed and left nothing behind 
it but compassion. One cannot keep up a grudge against a vacuum. I 
have tried to repeat the lad's very words ; if I have failed anywhere, 

I have at least not failed to reproduce 
the marrow and meaning of what he 
said. He and the innocent chatterbox 
whom I met on the Swiss lake are 
the most unique and interesting spe- 
cimens of Young America I came 
across during my foreign tramping. 
I have made honest portraits of them, 
not caricatures. The grandson of 
twenty-three referred to himself five 
or six times as an i old traveller,' and 
as many as three times (with a serene 
complacency which was maddening) 
as a l man of the world.' There was 
something very delicious about his 
leaving Boston to her ' narrowness,' unreproved and uninstructed. 

I formed the caravan in marching order presently, and after riding 
down the line to see that it was properly roped together, gave the com- 
mand to proceed. In a little while the road carried us to open, grassy 
land. We were above the troublesome forest now, and had an'unm- 




OCCASIONALLY MET WITH. 



A Til AMP ABROAD. 405 

terrupted view, straight before us, of our summit — the summit of the 
"RifFelberg. 

We followed the mule road, a zigzag course, now to the right, 
now to the left, but always up, and always crowded and incommoded 
by going and coming files of reckless tourists who were never, in a 
single instance, tied together. I was obliged to exert the utmost care 
and caution, for in many places the road was not two yards wide, and 
often the lower side of it sloped away in slanting precipices eight and 
even nine feet deep. I had to encourage the men constantly, to keep 
them from giving way to their unmanly fears. 

We might have made the summit before night but for a delay 
caused by the loss of an umbrella. I was for allowing the umbrella to 
remain lost, but the men murmured, and with reason, for in this exposed 
region we stood in peculiar need of protection against avalanches; so I 
went into camp and detached a strong party to go alter the missing 
-article. 

The difficulties of the next morning were severe, but our courage 
was high, for our goal was near. At noon we conquered the last im- 
pediment — we stood at last upon the summit — and without the loss 
•of a single man, except the mule that ate the glycerine. Our great 
.achievement was achieved — the possibility of the impossible was demon- 
strated, and Harris and I walked proudly into the great dining-room 
of the RifFelberg Hotel and stood our alpenstocks up in the corner. 

Yes, I had made the grand ascent ; but it was a mistake to do it in 
evening dress. The plug hats were battered, the swallow-tails were 
fluttering rags, mud added no grace, the general effect was unpleasant 
.and even disreputable. 

There were about seventy-five tourists at the hotel — mainly ladies 
•and little children — and they gave us an admiring welcome which paid 
us for all our privations and sufferings. The ascent had been made, 
-and the names and dates now stand recorded on a stone monument there 
to prove it to all future tourists. 

I boiled a thermometer and took an altitude, with a most curious 
result : the summit was not as high as the point on the mountain side 
where I had taken the first altitude. Suspecting that I had made an 
important discovery, I prepared to verify it. There happened to be a 
still higher summit (called the Gorner Grat) above the hotel, and 



40G 



A TRAMP ABIIUAD. 




notwithstanding the fact that it overlooks a glacier from a dizzy height^ 

and that the ascent is dif- 
ficult and dangerous, I re- 
solved to venture up there- 
and boil a thermometer. 
So I sent a strong party,, 
with some borrowed hoes,. 
f if/} in charge of two chiefs of 
service, to dig a stairway in 
the soil all the way, and 
this I ascended, roped to 
the guides. This breezy 
height was the summit pro- 
per — so I accomplished 
even more than I had 
originally purposed to do* 
This foolhardy exploit is- 
recorded on another stone 
monument. 

I boiled my thermo- 
meter, and sure enough this spot, which purported to be 2,000 feet, 
higher than the locality of the hotel, turned out to be 9,000 feet lower. 
Thus the fact was clearly demonstrated that, above a certain point t 
the higher a point seems to be, the lower it actually is. Our ascent 
itself was a great achievement, but this contribution to science was an 
inconceivably greater matter. 

Cavillers object that water boils at a lower and lower temperature 
the higher and higher you go, and hence the apparent anomaly. I 
answer that I do not base my theory upon what the boiling water does,, 
but upon whet a boiled thermometer says. You can't go behind the- 
thermometer. 

I had a magnificent view of Monte Eosa, and apparently all the- 
rest or the Alpine world, from that high place. All the circling 
horizon was piled high with a mighty tumult of snowy crests. One- 
might have imagined he saw before him the tented camps of a belea- 
guering host of Brobdingnagians. 

But lonely, conspicuous, and superb rose that wonderful upright 



SUMMIT OF THE GORNER GEAT. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



40T 



wedge, the Matterhorn. -Its precipitous sides were powdered over with 
snow, and the upper half hidden in thick clouds which now and then 




CHIEFS OF THE ADVANCE GUARD. 



dissolved to cobweb films and gave brief glimpses of the imposing 
tower as through a veil. A little later the Matterhorn l took to him- 
self the semblance of a volcano ; he was stripped naked to his apex — 
around this circled vast wreaths of white cloud which strung slowly oat 

1 Note. — I had the very unusual luck to catch one little momentary glimpse 
of the Matterhorn wholly unencumbered by clouds. I levelled my photographic 
apparatus at it without the loss of an instant, and should have got an elegant 
picture if my donkey had not interfered. It was my purpose to draw this pho- 
tograph all by myself for my book, but I was obliged to put the mountain part of it 
into the hands of the professional artist because I found I could not do landscape 
well. 



408 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



and streamed away slantwise toward the sun, a twenty-mile stretch of 
rolling and tumbling vapour, and looking just as if it were pouring 
out of a crater. Later again, one of the mountain's sides was clean 
and clear, and another side densely clothed from base to summit in 
thick sni(ke-like cloud which leathered off and blew around the shaft's 
sharp edge like the smoke around the corners of a burning building. 
The Matterhom is always experimenting, and always gets up fine effects 




MY PICTURE OP THE MATTERHORN. 

too. In the sunset, when all the lower world is palled in gloom, it 
points toward heaven out of the pervading blackness like a finger of 
fire. In the sunrise — well, they say it is very fine in the sunrise. 

Authorities agree that there is no such tremendous 'lay out 7 of 
snowy Alpine magnitude, grandeur, and sublimity to be seen from any 
other accessible point as the tourist may see from the summit of the 
Kiffelberg. Therefore let the tourist rope himself up and go there, 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 400 

for I have shown that with nerve, caution, and judgment the thing can 
be done. 

I wish to add one remark here — in parentheses, so to speak — sug- 
gested by the word ' snowy,' which I have just used. We have all 
seen hills and mountains and levels with snow on them, and so we 
think we know all the aspects and effects produced by snow. But 
indeed we do not, until we have seen the Alps. Possibly mass and 
distance add something — at any rate something is added. Among 
other noticeable things, there is a dazzling, intense whiteness about the 
distant Alpine snow when the sun is on it, which one recognises as 
peculiar, and not familiar to the eye. The snow which one is accus- 
tomed to has a tint to it — painters usually give it a bluish cast — but 
there is no perceptible tint to the distant Alpine snow when it is trying 
to look its whitest. As to the unimaginable splendour of it when the 
sun is blazing down on it — well, it simply is unimaginable. 



410 A TRAMP ABROAD, 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

A guide-book is a queer thing. The reader has just seen what a man 
who undertakes the great ascent from Zermatt to the Riffelberg 
Hotel must experience. Yet Baedeker makes these strange state- 
ments concerning this matter : — 

1. Distance — three hours. 

2. The road cannot be mistaken. 

3. Guide unnecessary. 

4. Distance from Riffelberg Hotel to the Gorner Grat, one hour 
and a half. 

5. Ascent simple and easy. Guide unnecessary. 

6. Elevation of Zermatt above sea level, 5,315 feet. 

7. Elevation of Riffelberg Hotel above sea level, 8,429 feet. 

8. Elevation of the Gorner Grat above sea level, 10,289 feet. 

I have pretty effectually throttled these errors by sending him 
the following demonstrated facts : — 

1. Distance from Zermatt to Riffelberg Hotel, seven days. 

2. The road can be mistaken. If I am the first that did it, I want 
the credit of it too. 

3. Guides are necessary, for none but a native can read those 
finger-boards. 

4. The estimate of the elevation of the several localities above 
sea level is pretty correct — for Baedeker. He only misses it about a 
hundred and eighty or ninety thousand feet. 

I found my arnica invaluable. My men were suffering excruciat- 
ingly, from the friction of sitting down so much. During two or three 
days not one of them was able to do more than lie down or walk 
about ; yet so effective was the arnica, that on the fourth all were able 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 411 

to sit up. I consider that, more than to anything else, I owe the 
success of our great undertaking to arnica and paregoric. 

My men being restored to health and strength, my main perplexity 
now was how to get them down the mountain again. I was not willing 
to expose the brave fellows to the perils, fatigues, and hardships of that 
fearful route again if it could be helped. First I thought of balloons \ 
but of course I had to give that idea up, for balloons were not pro- 
curable. I thought of several other expedients, but upon considera- 
tion discarded them for cause. But at last I hit it. I was aware 
that the movement of glaciers is an established fact, for I had read it 
in Baedeker; so I resolved to take passage for Zermatt on the great 
Gorner Glacier. 

Very good. The next thing was, how to get down to the glacier 
comfortably — for the mule-road to it was long, and winding, and weari- 
some. I set my mind at work, and soon thought out a plan. One- 
looks straight down upon the vast frozen river called the Gorner 
Glacier from the Gorner Grat — a sheer precipice 1,200 feet high. 
We had 154 umbrellas — and what is an umbrella but a parachute ? 

I mentioned this noble idea to Harris with enthusiasm, and was 
about to order the expedition to form on the Gorner Grat, with their 
umbrellas, and prepare for flight by platoons, each platoon in command 
of a guide, when Harris stopped me and urged me not to be too 
hasty. He asked me if this method of descending the Alps had ever 
been tried before. I said, 'No, I had not heard of an instance.' Then, 
in his opinion, it was a matter of considerable gravity ; in his opinion 
it would not be well to send the whole command over the cliff at 
once ; a better way would be to send down a single individual first, and 
see how he fared. 

I saw the wisdom of this idea instantly. I said as much, and- 
thanked my agent cordially, and told him to take his umbrella and 
try the thing right away, and wave his hat when he got down, if he- 
struck in a soft place, and then I would ship the rest right along. 

Harris was greatly touched with this mark of confidence, and saidi 
so in a voice that had a perceptible tremble in it ; but at the same time 
he said he did not feel himself worthy of so conspicuous a favour ; 
that it might cause jealousy in the command, for there were plenty who 
would not hesitate to say he had used underhand means to get the? 



412 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

appointment, whereas his conscience would bear him witness that he 
had not sought it at all, nor even, in his secret heart, desired it. 

I said these words did him extreme credit, but that he must not 
throw away the imperishable distinction of being the first man to 
descend an Alp per parachute, simply to save the feelings of some 
envious underlings. No, I said, he must accept the appointment — 
it was no longer an invitation, it was a command. 

He thanked me with effusion, and said that putting the thing 
in this form removed every objection. He retired, and soon returned 
■with his umbrella, his eyes flaming with gratitude and his cheeks pallid 
with joy. Just then the head guide passed along. Harris's expression 
changed to one of infinite tenderness, and he said — 

' That man did me a cruel injury four days ago, and I said in my 
heart he should live to perceive and confess that the only noble revenge 
a man can take upon his enemy is to return good for evil. I resign in 
his favour. Appoint him.' 

I threw my arms around the generous fellow and said — 
' Harris, you are the noblest soul that lives. You shall not regret 
this sublime act, neither shall the world fail to know of it. You shall 
have opportunities far transcending this one, too, if I live — remember 
that.' 

I called the head guide to me and appointed him on the spot. But 
the thing aroused no enthusiasm in him. He did not take to the idea 
at all. He said — 

' l-ae myself to an umbrella and jump over the Gorner Grat; 
excuse • me, there are a great many pleasanter roads to the devil than 
that.' \ 

Upovi a discussion of the subject with him, it appeared that he 
considere\i the project distinctly and decidedly dangerous. I was not 
convinced,\ yet I was not willing to try the experiment in any risky 
way — that fcs, in a way that might cripple the strength and efficiency 
of the Expedition. I was about at my wits' end when it occurred to 
•me to try it om the Latinist. 

He was calie.d in. But he declined, on the plea of inexperience, 
diffidence in public, lack of curiosity, and I don't know what all. 
Another man declined on account of a cold in the head ; thought 
he ought to avoid Exposure. Another could not jump well — never 



\ 



A TliAMP ABROAD. 



41* 



could jump well — did not believe he could jump so far without 

long and patient practice. Another was afraid it was going to rain.. 

and his umbrella had a hole in it. Everybody had an excuse. The 

result was what the reader has by this time guessed : the most 

magnificent idea that was ever conceived had to be abandoned from. 

sheer lack of a \ 

person with 

enterprise 

enough to carry 

it out. Yes, I 

actually had to 

give that thing 

up — whilst, 

doubtless, I 

should live to 

see somebody 









took up 
because 



use it, and take 
all the credit 
from me. 

Well, I had 
to go overland 
— there was no 
other way. I 
marched the 

Expedition 
down the steep 
and tedious 
mule-path, and 
as good a position as I could upon the middle of the glacier, 
Baedeker said the middle part travels the fastest. As a measure 



EVERYBODY HAD AN EXCUSE. 



414 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

of economy, however, I put some of the heavier baggage on the 
shoreward parts, to go as slow freight. 

I waited and waited, but the glacier did not move. Night was 
coming on, the darkness began to gather — still we did not budge. It 
occurred to me then that there might be a time-table in Baedeker, it 
would be well to find out the hours of starting. I called for the 
book — it could not be found. Bradshaw would certainly contain a 
time-table, but no Bradshaw could be found. 

Very well, I must make the best of the situation. So I pitched 
the tents, picketed the animals, milked the cows, had supper, 
paregoricked the men, established the watch, and went to bed — with 
orders to call me as soon as we came in sight of Zermatt. 

I awoke about half -past ten next morning and looked around. We 
hadn't budged a peg ! At first I could not understand it : then it 
occurred to me that the old thing must be aground. So I cut down 
some trees and rigged a spar on the starboard and another on the 
port side, and fooled away upwards of three hours trying to spar her 
off. But it was no use, she was half a mile wide and fifteen or 
twenty miles long, and there was no telling just whereabouts she 
was aground. The men began to show uneasiness too, and presently 
they came flying to me with ashy faces, saying she had sprung a leak. 

Nothing but my cool behaviour at this critical time saved us from 
another panic. I ordered them to show me the place. They led 
me to a spot where a huge boulder lay in a deep pool of clear and 
brilliant water. It did look like a pretty bad leak, but I kept that to 
myself. I made a pump and set the men to work to pump out the 
glacier. We made a success of it. I perceived then that it w r as not 
a leak at all. This boulder had descended from a precipice and 
stopped on the ice in the middle of the glacier, and the sun had 
warmed it up every day, and consequently it had melted its way 
deeper and deeper into the ice, until at last it reposed, as we had found 
it, in a deep pool of the clearest and coldest water. 

Presently Baedeker was found again, and I hunted eagerly for the 
time-table. There was none. The book simply said the glacier was 
moving all the time. This was satisfactory, so I shut up the book and 
chose a good position to view the scenery as we passed along. I stood 
there some time enjoying the trip, but at last it occurred to me that we 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



415 



did not seem to be gaining any on the scenery. I said to myself, 
* This confounded old thing's aground again, sure' — and opened 
Baedeker to see if I could run across any remedy for these annoying 
interruptions. I soon found a sentence which threw a dazzling light 




>PRUNG A LEAK. 



upon the matter. It said, ' The Gorner Glacier travels at an average 
rate of a little less than an inch a day.' I have seldom felt so 
outraged. I have seldom had my confidence so wantonly betrayed. 1 
made a small calculation : 1 inch a day, say 30 feet a year ; estimated 



416 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

distance to Zermatt, 3 1-18 miles. Time required to go by glacier,. 
a little over jive hundred years ! I said to myself, ' I can walk it- 
quicker, and before I will patronise such a fraud as this, I will do it.' 

When I revealed to Harris the fact that the passenger-part of thi^ 
glacier — the central part — the lightning-express part, so to speak — 
was not due in Zermatt till the summer of 2,378, and that the- 
baggage, coming along the slow edge, would not arrive until some- 
generations later, he burst out with — 

' That is European management all over ! An inch a day — think 
of that ! Five hundred years to go a trifle over three miles ! But 
I am not a bit surprised. It's a Catholic glacier. You can tell by 
the look of it. And the management ! ' 

I said no, I believed nothing but the extreme end of it was in a. 
Catholic canton. 

* Well, then, it's a Government glacier,' said Harris. ' It's all the 
same. Over here the Government runs everything— so everything's- 
slow ; slow and ill-managed. But with us, everything's done by 
private enterprise, and then there ain't much lolling around, you can 
depend on it. I wish Tom Scott could get his hands on this torpid 
old slab once — you'd see it take a different gait from this.' 

I said I was sure he would increase the speed, if there was trade 
enough to justify it. 

1 He'd make trade,' said Harris. ' That's the difference between 
Governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals- 
do. Tom Scott would take all the trade ; in two years Gorner stock 
would go to 200, and inside of two more you would see all the other 
glaciers under the hammer for taxes.' After a reflective pause, Harris 
added, ' A little less than an inch a day ; a little less than an inch, mind 
you. Well, I am losing my reverence for glaciers.' 

I was feeling much the same way myself. I have travelled by canal 
boat, ox- waggon, raft, and by the Ephesus and Smyrna railway, but 
when it comes down to good solid honest slow motion, I bet my 
money on the glacier. As a means of passenger transportation I 
consider the glacier a failure ; but as a vehicle for slow freight, I think 
she fills the bill. In the matter of putting the fine shades on that line 
of business, I judge she could teach the Germans something. 

I ordered the men to break camp and prepare for the land journey 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



417 



to Zermatt. At this moment a most interesting find was made; a 
dark object, bedded in the glacial ice, was cut out with the ice-axes, 
and it proved to be a piece of the undressed skin of some animal — a 
hair trunk, perhaps ; but a close inspection disabled the hair trunk 
theory, and further discussion and examination exploded it entirely 
— that is, in the opinion of all the scientists except the one who had 
advanced it. This one clung to his theory with the affectionate fidelity 
characteristic of originators of scientific theories, and afterwards won 
many of the first scientists of the age to his view, by a very able 
pamphlet which he wrote, entitled, 'Evidences going to show that the 
hair trunk, in a wild state, belonged to the early glacial period, and 
roamed the wastes of chaos in company with the cave bear, primeval 
man, and the other Oolitics of the Old Silurian fnmily.' 

Each of our scientists had ;i 
theory of his own, and put for- 
ward an animal of his own as a 
candidate for the skin. I sided 
with the geologist of the Expedi- 
tion in the belief that this patch 
of skin had once helped to cover 
a Siberian elephant in some old 
forgotten age — but we divided 
there, the geologist believing 
that this discovery proved that 
Siberia had formerly been 
located where Switzerland is 
now, whereas I held the opinion 
that it merely proved that the 
primeval Swiss was not the dull 
savage he is represented to have 
been, but was a being of high 
intellectual development, who 
liked to go to the menagerie. 

We arrived that evening, 
after many hardships and 
adventures, in some fields close A scientific question. 

to the great ice-arch where the mad Visp boils and surges out from 

£ £ 




418 .1 TRAMP ABROAD. 

under the foot of the great Gorner Glacier, and here we camped, 
our perils over, and our magnificent undertaking successfully com- 
pleted. We marched into Zermatt the next day, and were received 
with the most lavish honours and applause. A document, signed 
and sealed by all the authorities, was given to me which established 
and endorsed the fact that I had made the ascent of the RifFelberg. 
This I wear around my neck, and it will be buried with me when 
[ am no more, 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 419 



CHAPTER XL. 

I am not so ignorant about glacial movement now as I was when I took 
passage on the Gorner Glacier. I have ' read up ' since. I am aware 
that these vast bodies of ice do not travel at the same rate of speed ; 
whilst the Gorner Glacier makes less than an inch a day, the Unter- 
Aar Glacier makes as much as eight ; and still other glaciers are said 
to go 12, 16, and even 20 inches a day. One writer says that the 
slowest glacier travels 25 feet a year, and the fastest 400. 

What is a glacier ? It is easy to say it looks like a frozen river 
which occupies the bed of a winding gorge or gully between mountains. 
But that gives no notion of its vastness, for it is sometimes 600 feet 
thick, and we are not accustomed to rivers 600 feet deep ; no, our 
rivers are 6 feet, 20 feet, and sometimes 50 feet deep ; we are not quite 
able to grasp so large a fact as an ice-river 600 feet deep. 

The glacier's surface is not smooth and level, but has deep swales 
and swelling elevations, and sometimes has the look of a tossing sea 
whose turbulent billows were frozen hard in the instant of their most 
violent motion ; the glacier's surface is not a flawless mass, but is a 
river with cracks or crevasses, some narrow, some gaping wide. Many 
a man, the victim of a slip or a mis-step, has plunged down one of 
these and met his death. Men have been fished out of them alive, but 
it was when they did not go to a great depth ; the cold of the great 
depths would quickly stupefy a man, whether he was hurt or unhurt. 
These cracks do not go straight down ; one can seldom see more than 
20 to 40 feet down them ; consequently men who have disappeared 
in them have been sought for, in the hope that they had stopped within 
helping distance, whereas their case, in most instances, had really been 
hopeless from the beginning. 

In 1864 a party of tourists was descending Mont Blanc, and while 

E e 2 



420 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

picking their way over one of the mighty glaciers of that lofty region T 
roped together, as was proper, a young porter disengaged himself from 
the line, and started across an ice-bridge which spanned a crevasse. 
It broke under him with a crash and he disappeared. The others 
could not see how deep he had gone, so it might be worth while to 
try and rescue him. A brave young guide named Michel Payot volun- 
teered. 

Two ropes were made fast to his leather belt, and he bore the end 
of the third one in his hand to tie to the victim in case he found him. 
He was lowered into the crevasse, he descended deeper and deeper 
between the clear blue walls of solid ice, he approached a bend in the 
crack and disappeared under it. Down, and still down, he went into 
this profound grave; when he had reached a depth of 80 feet he passed 
under another bend in the crack, and thence descended 80 feet lower,. 
as between perpendicular precipices. Arrived at this stage of 160' 
feet below the surface of the glacier, he peered through the twiligL': 
dimness and perceived that the chasm took another turn and stretched 
away at a steep slant to unknown deeps, for its course was lost in 
darkness. What a place that was to be in — especially i£ that leather 
belt should break ! The compression of the belt threatened to suffo- 
cate the intrepid fellow ; he called to his friends to draw him up, but 
could not make them hear. They still lowered him deeper and deeper. 
Then he jerked his third cord as vigorously as he could ; his friends' 
understood, and dragged him out of those icy jaws of death. 

Then they attached a bottle to a cord and sent it down 200 feet^ 
but it found no bottom. It came up covered with congelations — 
evidence enough that even if the poor porter reached the bottom with 
unbroken bones, a swift death from cold was sure anyway. 

A glacier is a stupendous, ever progressing, resistless plough. It 
pushes ahead of it masses of boulders which are packed together, and 
they stretch across the gorge, right in front of it, like a long grave or 
a long, sharp roof. This is called a moraine. It also shoves out a 
moraine along each side of its course. 

Imposing as the modern glaciers are, they are not so huge as were 
Rome that once existed. For instance, Mr. Whymper says : — 

1 At some very remote period the valley of Aosta was occupied by 
a vast glacier, which flowed down its entire length from Mont Blanc to* 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 421 

the plain of Piedmont, remained stationary, or nearly so, at its mouth 
for many centuries, and deposited there enormous masses of debris. The 
length of this glacier exceeded eighty miles, and it drained a basin 
twenty-five to thirty-five miles across, bounded by the highest moun- 
tains in the Alps. The great peaks rose several thousand feet above 
the glaciers, and then, as now, shattered by sun and frost, poured down 
their showers of rocks and stones, in witness of which there are the 
immense piles of angular fragments that constitute the moraines of 
Ivria. 

' The moraines around Ivria are of extraordinary dimensions. That 
which was on the left bank of the glacier is about thirteen miles long, 
and in some places rises to a height of two thousand one hundred and 
thirty feet above the floor of the valley ! The terminal moraines (those 
which are pushed in front of the glaciers) cover something like twenty 
square miles of country. At the mouth of the valley of the Aosta 
the thickness of the glacier must have been at least two thousand feet, 
and its width at that ^rt five miles and a quarter' 

It is not easy to get at a comprehension of a mass of ice like that. 
If one could cleave off the butt end of such a glacier — an oblong block 
two or three miles wide by five and a quarter long and 2,000 feet thick 
— he could completely hide the city of New York under it, and Trinity 
steeple would only stick up into it relatively as far as a shingle nail 
would stick up into the bottom of a Saratoga trunk. 

1 The boulders from Mont Blanc, upon the plain below Ivria, assure 
us that the glacier which transported them existed for a prodigious 
length of time. Their present distance from the cliffs from which they 
were derived is about 420,000 feet, and if we assume that they travelled 
at the rate of 400 feet per annum, their journey must have occupied 
them no less than 1,055 years ! In all probability they did not travel 
so fast.' 

Glaciers are sometimes hurried out of their characteristic snail- 
pace. A marvellous spectacle is presented then. Mr. Whymper 
refers to a case which occurred in Iceland in 1721 : — 

'It seems that in the neighbourhood of the mountain Kotlugja, 
large bodies of water formed underneath, or within the glaciers (either 
on account of the interior heat of the earth or from other causes), and 
at length acquired irresistible power, tore the glaciers from their moor- 



422 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

ing on the land, and swept them over every obstacle into the sea. 
Prodigious masses of ice were thus borne for a distance o£ about ten 
miles over land in the space of a few hours ; and their bulk was so 
enormous, that they covered the sea for seven miles from the shore, 
and remained aground in 600 feet of water ! The denudation of the 
land was upon a grand scale. All superficial accumulations were swept 
away, and the bed-rock was exposed. It was described, in graphic 
language, how all irregularities and depressions were obliterated, and 
a smooth surface of several miles area laid bare, and that this area had 
the appearance of having been planed by a plane.'' 

The account translated from the Icelandic says that the mountain- 
like ruins of this majestic glacier so covered the sea that as far as the 
eye could reach no open water was discoverable, even from the highest 
peaks. A monster wall or barrier of ipe was built across a consider- 
able stretch of land, too, by this strange irruption : — 

' One can form some idea of the altitude of this barrier of ice when 
it is mentioned that from Hofdabrekka farm, which lies high up on 
a fjeld, one could not see Hjorleifshofdi opposite, which is a fell 640 
feet in height ; but in order to do so had to clamber up a mountain 
slope east of Hofdabrekka 1,200 feet high.' 

These things will help the reader to understand why it is that a 
man who keeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignifi- 
cant by and by. The Alps and the glaciers together are able to take 
every bit of conceit out of a man and reduce his self-importance to 
zero if he will only remain within the influence of their sublime pre- 
sence long enough to give it a fair and reasonable chance to do its 
work. 

The Alpine glaciers move — that is granted now by everybody. 
But there was a time when people scoffed at the idea ; they said you 
might as well expect leagues of solid rock to crawl along the ground as 
expect solid leagues of ice to do it. But proof after proof was furnished, 
and finally the world had to believe. 

The wise men not only said the glacier moved, but they timed its 
movement. They ciphered out a glacier's gait, and then said confi- 
dently that it would travel just so far in so many years. There is re- 
cord of a striking and curious example of the accuracy which may be 
attained in these reckonings. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 423 

In 1820 the ascent of Mont Blanc was attempted by a Kussian and 
two Englishmen, with seven guides. They had reached a prodigious 
altitude, and were approaching the summit, when an avalanche swept 
several of the party down a sharp slope of two hundred feet and hurled 
five of them (all guides) into one of the crevasses of a glacier. The 
life of one of the five was saved by a long barometer which was strapped 
to his back — it bridged the crevasse and suspended him until help 
came. The alpenstock or baton of another saved its owner in a similar 
way. Three men were lost — Pierre Balmat, Pierre Carrier, and 
Auguste Tairraz. They had been hurled down into the fathomless great 
deeps of the crevasse. 

Dr. Forbes, the English geologist, had made frequent visits to the 
Mont Blanc region, and had given much attention to the disputed ques- 
tion of the movement of glaciers. During one of these visits he com- 
pleted his estimates of the rate of movement o£ the glacier which had 
swallowed up the three guides, and uttered the prediction that the 
glacier would deliver up its dead at the foot of the mountain thirty-five 
years from the time of the accident, or possibly forty. 

A dull, slow journey — a movement imperceptible to any eye — but 
it was proceeding, nevertheless, and without cessation. It was a journey 
which a rolling stone would make in a few seconds — the lofty point of 
departure was visible from the village below in the valley. 

The prediction cut curiously close to the truth ; forty-one years 
after the catastrophe the remains were cast forth at the foot of the 
glacier. 

I find an interesting account of the matter in the ' Histoire du Mont 
31anc,' by Stephen d'Arve. I will condense this account as follows: — 

' On the 12th of August, 1861, at the hour of the close of mass, 
a guide arrived out of breath at the mairie of Chamonix, and bearing 
on his shoulders a very lugubrious burden. It was a sack filled with 
human remains which he had gathered from the orifice of a crevasse 
in the Glacier des Bossons. He conjectured that these were remains 
of the victims of the catastrophe of 1820, and a minute inquest, 
immediately instituted by the local authorities, soon demonstrated the 
correctness of his supposition. The contents of the sack were spread 
upon a long table, and officially inventoried as follows : — 

' Portions of three human skulls. Several tufts of black and blonde 



i2i 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



hair. A human jaw, furnished with fine white teeth. A fore-arm and 
hand, all the fingers of the latter intact. The flesh was white and 
fresh, and both the arm and hand preserved a degree of flexibility in 
the articulations. 

1 The ring finger had suffered a slight abrasion, and the stain of the 
blood was still visible and unchanged after forty-one years. A left 
foot, the flesh white and fresh. 

1 Along with these fragments were portions of waistcoats, hats, hob- 
nailed shoes, and other clothing ; a wing of a pigeon, with black 




UNEXPECTED MEETING OF FRIENDS. 



feathers; a fragment of an alpenstock; a tin lantern; and lastly, a 
boiled leg of mutton, the only flesh among all the remains that exhaled 
an unpleasant odour. The guide said that the mutton had no odour 
when he took it from the glacier ; an hour's exposure to the sun had 
already begun the work of decomposition upon it. 

'Persons were called for to identify these poor pathetic relics, and a 
touching scene ensued. Two men were still living who had witnessed 
the grim catastrophe of nearly half a century before — Marie Couttet 
(saved by his baton) and Julien Davouassoux (saved by the barometer). 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 425 

These aged men entered and approached the table. Davonassoux, 
more than 80 years old, contemplated the mournful remains mutely 
and with a vacant eye, for his intelligence and his memory were torpid 
with age ; but Couttet's faculties were still perfect at seventy-two, and 
he exhibited strong emotion. He said — 

1 " Pierre Balmat was fair ; he wore a straw hat. This bit of skull, 
with the tuft of blonde hair, was his ; this is his hat. Pierre Carrier 
was very dark ; this skull was his, and this felt hat. This is Balmat's 
hand, I remember it so well I " and the old man bent down and kissed 
it reverently, then closed his fingers upon it in an affectionate grasp, 
crying out, " I could never have dared to believe that before quitting 
this world it would be granted me to press once more the hand of one 
of those brave comrades, the hand of my good friend Balmat." 

1 There is something weirdly pathetic about the picture of that 
white-haired veteran greeting with his loving hand-shake this friend 
who had been dead forty years. When these hands had met last, they 
were alike in the softness and freshness of youth ; now, one was 
brown, and wrinkled and horny with age, while the other was still as 
young, and fair, and blemishless as if those forty years had come and 
gone in a single moment, leaving no mark of their passage. Time had 
gone on in the one case ; it had stood still in the other. A man who 
has not seen a friend for a generation keeps him in mind always as 
he saw him last, and is somehow surprised, and is also shocked, to see 
the ageing change the years have wrought when he sees him again. 
Marie Couttet's experience, in finding his friend's hand unaltered from 
the image of it which he had carried in his memory for forty years, 
is an experience which stands alone in the history of man, perhaps. 

' Couttet identified other relics — 

' " This hat belonged to Auguste Tairraz. He carried the cage of 
pigeons which we proposed to set free upon the summit. Here is the 
wing of one of those pigeons. And here is the fragment of my 
broken baton ; it was by grace of that baton that my life was saved. 
Who could have told me that I should one day have the satisfaction to 
look again upon this bit of wood that supported me above the grave that 
swalloAved up my unfortunate companions ! " ' 

No portions of the body of Tairraz had been found. A diligent 
search was made, but without result. However, another search was 



426 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

instituted a year later, and this had better success. Many fragments 
of clothing which had belonged to the lost guides were discovered ; also 
part of a lantern, and a green veil, with blood stains on it. But the 
interesting feature was this — 

One of the searchers came suddenly upon a sleeved arm projecting 
from a crevice in the ice-wall, with th^ hand outstretched as if offering 
greeting ! ' The nails of this white hand were still rosy, and the pose 
of the extended fingers seem to express an eloquent welcome to the 
long lost light of day.' 

The hand and arm were alone ; there was no trunk. After being 
removed from the ice the flesh tints quickly faded out and the rosy nails- 
took on the alabaster hue of death. This was the third right hand 
found ; therefore all three of the lost men were accounted for beyond 
cavil or question. 

Dr. Hamel was the Russian gentleman of the party which made 
the ascent at the time of the famous disaster. He left Chamonix as 
soon as he conveniently could after the descent ; and as he had shown 
a chilly indifference about the calamity, and offered neither sympathy 
nor assistance to the widows and orphans, he carried with him the 
cordial execrations of the whole community. Four months before the 
first remains were found, a Chamonix guide named Balmat — a relative 
of one of the lost men — was in London, and one day encountered a hale 
old gentleman in the British Museum, who said, — 

1 1 overheard your name. Are you from Chamonix, Monsieur 
Balmat?' 

' Yes, sir.' 

'Haven't they found the bodies of my three guides yet? I am 
Dr. Hamel.' 

1 Alas, no, monsieur.' 

1 Well, you'll find them sooner or later.' 

' Yes, it is the opinion of Dr. Forbes and Mr. Tyndall that the 
glacier will sooner or later restore to us the remains of the unfortu- 
nate victims.' 

' Without a doubt, without a doubt. And it will be a great thing 
for Chamonix, in the matter of attracting tourists. You can get up a 
museum with those remains that will draw ! ' 

This savage idea has not improved the odour of Dr. Hamel's name 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 42? 

in Chamonix by any means. But, after all, the man was sound on 
human nature. His idea was conveyed to the public officials of Cha- 
monix, and they gravely discussed it around the official council table.. 
They were only prevented from carrying it into execution by the 
determined opposition of the friends and descendants of the lost guides, 
who insisted on giving the remains Christian burial, and succeeded in 
their purpose. 

A close watch had to be kept upon all the poor remnants and 
fragments, to prevent embezzlement. A few accessory odds and end^- 
were sold. Bags and scraps of the coarse clothing were parted with 
at a rate equal to about twenty dollars a yard ; a piece of a lantern and 
one or two other trifles brought nearly their weight in gold; and an 
Englishman offered a pound sterling for a single breeches-button. 



4.23 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

One of the most memorable of all the Alpine catastrophes was that 
of July 1865, on the Matterhorn — already slightly referred to a few 
pages back. The details of it are scarcely known in America. To 
the vast majority of readers they are not known at all. Mr. Whymper's 
account is the only authentic one. I will import the chief portion of 
it into this book, partly because of its intrinsic interest, and partly 
because it gives such a vivid idea of what the perilous pastime of Alp- 
climbing is. This was Mr. Whymper's ninth attempt during a series 
of years to vanquish that steep and stubborn pillar of rock ; it 
succeeded, the other eight were failures. No man had ever accom- 
plished the ascent before, though the attempts had been numerous. 

MR. WHYMPER'S NARRATIVE. 

We started from Zermatt on July 13, at half-past five, on a 
brilliant and perfectly cloudless morning. We were eight in number 
— Croz (guide), old Peter Taugwalder (guide), and his two sons; 
Lord F. Douglas, Mr. Hadow, Rev. Mr. Hudson, and I. To ensure 
steady motion, one tourist and one native walked together. The 
youngest Taugwalder fell to my share. The wine-bags also fell to 
my lot to carry, and throughout the day after each drink I replenished 
them secretly with water, so that at the next halt they were found 
fuller than before ! This was considered a good omen, and little short 
of miraculous. 

On the first day we did not intend to ascend to any great height, 
and we mounted accordingly very leisurely. Before twelve o'clock we 
had found a good position for the tent at a height of 11,000 feet. We 
•passed the remaining hours of daylight — some basking in the sun- 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 42? 

♦dime, some sketching, some collecting; Hudson made tea, I coffee, 
and at length we retired, each one to his blanket -hag. 

"We assembled together before dawn on the 14th and started directly 
it was light enough to move. One of the young Taugwalders returned 
to Zermatt. In a few minutes we turned the rib which had inter- 
cepted the view of the eastern face from our tent platform. The 
whole of this great slope was now revealed, rising for 3,000 feet like a 
huge natural staircase. Some parts were more, and others were les- 
easy, but we were not once brought to rv halt by any serious impedi- 
ment, for when an obstruction was met in front it could always be 
turned to the right or to the left. For the greater part of the way 
there was no occasion, indeed, lor the rope, and sometimes Hudson 
led, sometimes myself. At 6.20 we had attained a height of 12,800 
feet, and halted for half an hour ; we then continued the ascent with- 
out a break until 9.55, when we stopped for fifty minutes, at a height 
of 14,000 feet. 

We had now arrived at the foot of that part which, seen from the 
Riffelberg. seems perpendicular or overhanging. We could no longer 
continue on the eastern side. For a little distance we ascended by 
snow upon the arete — that is, the ridge — then turned over to the right, 
or northern side. The work became difficult, and required caution. 
In some places there was little to hold ; the general slope of the 
mountain was less than 40°, and snow had accumulated in, and had 
filled up, the interstices of the rock-face, leaving only occasional 
fragments projecting here and there. These were at times covered 
with a thin film of ice. It was a place which any fair mountaineer 
might pass in safety. We bore away nearly horizontally for about 
400 feet, then ascended directly towards the summit for about 60 
feet, then doubled back to the ridge which descends towards Zermatt. 
A long, stride round a rather awkward corner brought us to snow 
once more. The last doubt vanished ! The Matterhorn was ours ! 
Nothing but 200 feet of easy snow remained to be surmounted. 

The higher we rose, the more intense became the excitement. The 
slope eased off, at length we could be detached, and Croz and I, dashing 
away, ran a neck-and-neck race, which ended in a dead heat. At 1.40 
p.m. the world was at our feet, and the Matterhorn was conquered. 

The others arrived. Croz now took the tent-pole and planted it in 



430 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

the highest snow. - Yes,' we said, ' there is the flag- staff, but where 
is the flag ? ' * Here it is,' he answered, pulling off his blouse and fixing 
it to the stick. It made a poor flag, and there was no wind to float it 
■out, yet it was seen all around. They saw it at Zermatt — at the 

Riffel — in the Val Tournanche. 

******* 

We remained on the summit for one hour — 

One crowded hour of glorious life. 

It passed away too quickly, and we began to prepare for the 
■descent. 

Hudson and I consulted as to the best and safest arrangement of the 
party. We agreed that it was best for Croz to go first, and Hadow 
second ; Hudson, who was almost equal to a guide in sureness of 
foot, wished to be third ; Lord Douglas was placed next, and old Peter, 
the strongest of the remainder, after him. I suggested to Hudson that 
we should attach a rope to the rocks on our arrival at the difficult bit, 
and hold it as we descended, as an additional protection. He approved 
the idea, but it was not definitely decided that it should be done. 
The party was being arranged in the above order whilst I was sketch- 
ing the summit, and they had finished and were waiting for me to be 
tied in line, when some one remembered that our names had not been 
left in a bottle. They requested me to write them down, and moved 
off while it was being done. 

A few minutes afterwards I tied myself to young Peter, ran down 
after the others, and caught them just as they were commencing the 
descent of the difficult part. Great care was being taken. Only one 
man was moving at a time ; when he was firmly planted the next 
advanced, and so on. They had not, however, attached the additional 
rope to rocks, and nothing was said about it. The suggestion was 
not made for my own sake, and I am not sure that it even occurred to 
me again. For some little distance we two followed the others, 
detached from them, and should have continued so had not Lord 
Douglas asked me, about 3 p.m., to tie on to old Peter, as he feared, 
he said, that Taugwalder would not be able to hold his ground if 
a slip occurred. 

A few minutes later a sharp-eyed lad ran into the Monte Rosa 
Hotel at Zermatt, saying that he had seen an avalanche fall from the 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 431 

summit of the Matterhorn on to the Matterhorn glacier. The boy was 
reproved for telling idle stories ; he was right, nevertheless, and this 
was what he saw. 

Michel Croz had laid aside his axe, and in order to give Mr. Hadow 
greater security was absolutely taking hold of his legs, and putting 
his feet, one by one, into their proper positions. As far as I know, no 
one was actually descending. I cannot speak with certainty, because 
the two leading men were partially hidden from my sight by an 
intervening mass of rock, but it is my belief, from the movements of 
their shoulders, that Croz, having done as I have said, was in the act 
of turning round to go down a step or two himself; at this moment 
Mr. Hadow slipped, fell against him, and knocked him over. I heard 
one startled exclamation from Croz, then saw him and Mr. Hadow 
flying downwards ; in another moment Hudson was dragged from his 
steps, and Lord Douglas immediately after him. All this was the work 
of a moment. Immediately we heard Croz's exclamation, old Peter 
and I planted ourselves as firmly as the rocks would permit : the rope 
was taut between us, and the jerk came on us both as on one man. 
We held; but the rope broke midway between Taugwalder and Lord 
Francis Douglas. For a few seconds we saw our unfortunate 
companions sliding downwards on their backs, and spreading out 
their hands, endeavouring to save themselves. They passed from our 
sight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell from precipice to 
precipice on to the Matterhorn glacier below, a distance of nearly 
4,000 feet in height. From the moment the rope broke it was 
impossible to help them. So perished our comrades ! 

For more than two hours afterwards I thought almost every moment 
that the next would be my last, for the Taugwalders, utterly unnerved, 
were not only incapable of giving assistance, but were in such a 
state that a slip might have been expected from them at any moment. 
After a time we were able to do that which should have been done at 
first, and fixed rope to firm rocks, in addition to being tied together. 
These ropes were cut from time to time, and were left behind. Even 
with their assurance the men were afraid to proceed, and several 
times old Peter turned, with ashy face and faltering limbs, and said, 
with terrible emphasis, ' I cannot /' 



4S2 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

About 6 p.m. we arrived at the snow upon the ridge descending 
towards Zermatt, and all peril was over. We frequently looked, but 
in vain, for traces of our unfortunate companions ; we bent over the 
ridge and cried to them, but no sound returned. Convinced at last 
that they were neither within sight nor hearing, we ceased from our 
useless efforts ; and, too cast down for speech, silently gathered up our 
things, and the little effects of those who were lost, and then completed 
the descent. 

Such is Mr. Whymper's graphic and thrilling narrative. Zermatt 
gossip darkly hints that the elder Taugwalder cut the rope when 
the accident occurred in order to preserve himself from being dragged 
into the abyss ; but Mr. Whymper says that the ends of the rope showed 
no evidence of cutting but only of breaking. He adds that if 
Taugwalder had had the disposition to cut the rope, he would not have 
had time to do it, the accident was so sudden and unexpected. 

Lord Douglas's body has never been found. It probably lodged 
upon some inaccessible shelf in the face of the mighty precipice. Lord 
Douglas was a youth of nineteen. The three other victims fell nearly 
4,000 feet, and their bodies lay together upon the glacier when found 
by Mr. Whymper and the other searchers the next morning. Their 
graves are beside the little church in Zermatt. 



ROPED TOGETHEK, 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 433 



CHAPTER XL11", 

Switzerland is simply a large, humpy, solid rock, with a thin skin 
of grass stretched over it. Consequently they do not dig graves, they 
blast them out with powder and fuse. They cannot afford to have 
large graveyards, the grass skin is too circumscribed and too valuable. 
It is all required for the support of the living. 

The graveyard in Zermatt occupies only about one-eighth of an acre. 
The graves are sunk in the living rock, and are very permanent ; but 
occupation of them is only temporary; the occupant can only stay 
till his grave is needed by a later subject, he is removed then, for they 
do not bury one body on top of another. As I understand it, a family 
owns a grave just as it owns a house. A man dies and leaves his 
house to his son, and at the same time this dead father succeeds to 
his own father's grave. He moves out of the house and into the grave, 
and his predecessor moves out of the grave and into the cellar of the 
chapel. I saw a black box lying in the churchyard, with skull and 
cross-bones painted on it, and was told that this was used in transfer- 
ring remains to the cellar. 

In that cellar the bones and skulls of several hundreds of former 
citizens were compactly corded up. They made a pile 18 feet long, 
7 feet high, and 8 feet wide. I was told that in some of the receptacles 
of this kind in the Swiss villages the skulls were all marked, and if 
a man wished to find the skulls of his ancestors for several generations 
back, he could do it by these marks, preserved in the family records. 

An English gentleman who had lived some years in this region 
said it was the cradle of compulsory education. But he said that the 
English idea that compulsory education would reduce bastardy and in- 
temperance was an error — it has not that effect. He said there was more 
seduction in the Protestant than in the Catholic cantons, because the 

F F 



434 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



confessional protected the girls. 
women in France and Spain ? 



I wonder why it doesn't protect married 



This gentleman 
said that among the 
poorer peasants in the 
Valais it was common 
for the brothers in a 
family to cast lots to 
determine which of 
them should have the 
coveted privilege of 
marrying. Then the 
lucky one got married, 
and his brethren — 
doomed bachelors — 
heroically banded 
themselves together to 
help support the new 
family. 

We left Zermatt 
in a waggon — and in a 
rain storm, too — for 
St. Nicholas about ten 
o'clock one morning. 
Again we passed be- 
tween those grass-clad 
prodigious cliffs, specked with wee dwellings peeping over at us from 
velvety green walls ten and twelve hundred feet high. It did not 
seem possible that the imaginary chamois even could climb those pre- 
cipices. Lovers on the opposite cliffs probably kiss through a spy- 
glass and correspond with a rifle. 

In Switzerland the farmer's plough is a wide shovel, which scrapes 
up and tarns over the thin earthy skin of his native rock — and there 
the man of the plough is a hero. Now here, by our St. Nicholas road, 
was a grave, and it had a tragic story. A ploughman was skinning 
his farm one morning — not the steepest part of it, but still a steep part — 
that is, he was not skinning the front of his farm, but the rocf of it, 




STORAGE OF ANCESTORS. 



A Til AMP ABROAD. 



485 



near the eaveB — when he absent-mindedly let go of the plough-handles 
to moisten his hands in the usual way : he lost his balance and fell out 
of his farm backwards. Poor 
fellow, he never touched any- 
thing till he struck bottom 
1,500 feet below. 1 We throw a 
halo of heroism around the life 
of the soldier and the sailor, 
because of the deadly dangers 
they are facing all the time. 
But we are not used to looking 
upon farming as an heroic occu- 
pation. This is because we 
have not lived in Switzerland. 
From St. Nicholas we struck 
out for Visp — or Vispach — on 
foot. The ruin storms had been 
at work during several days, 
and had done a deal of damage 
in Switzerland and Savoy. We 
came to one place where a 
stream had changed its course 
and plunged down the mountain 
in a new place, sweeping every- 
thing before it. Two poor but 
precious farms by the roadside 
were ruined. One was washed 
clear away, and the bed-rock 
exposed; the other was buried 
out of sight under a tumbled 
chaos of rocks, gravel, mud, and 
rubbish. The resistless might 
of water was well exemplified. 
Some saplings which* had stood 
in the way were bent to the ground, stripped clean of their bark, and 
buried under rocky debris. The road had been swept away too. 




PALLING OUT OF HIS FARM. 



This was on a Sunday. - 

ff2 



-M. T. 



436 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

In another place, where the road was high up on the mountain'^ 
face, anu its outside edge protected by flimsy masonry, we frequently 
came across spots where this masonry had caved off and left dangerous 
gaps for mules to get over ; and with still more frequency we found the 
masonry slightly crumbled, and marked by mule hoofs, thus showing 
that there had been danger of an accident to somebody. When at last 
we came to a badly ruptured bit of masonry, with hoof-prints eviden- 
cing a desperate struggle to regain the lost foothold, I looked quite hope- 
fully over the dizzy precipice. But there was nobody down there. 

They take exceedingly good care of their rivers in Switzerland 
and other portions of Europe. They wall up both banks with slanting 
solid stone masonry — so that from end to end of these rivers the banks 
look like the wharves at St. Louis and other towns on the Mississippi 
River. 

It was during this walk from St. Nicholas, in the shadow of the 
majestic Alps, that we came across some little children amusing them- 
selves in what seemed, at first, a most odd and original way — but it 
wasn't, it was in simply a natural and characteristic way. They were 
roped together with a string, they had mimic alpenstocks and ice-axes, 
and were climbing a meek and lowly manure pile with a most blood- 
curdling amount of care and caution. The 'guide' at the head of the 
line cut imaginary steps in a laborious and painstaking way, and not a 
monkey budged till the step above him was vacated. If we had waited 
we should have witnessed an imaginary accident, no doubt ; and we 
should have heard the intrepid band hurrah when they made the 
summit and looked around upon the ' magnificent view,' and seen them 
throw themselves down in exhausted attitudes for a rest in that com- 
manding situation. 

In Nevada I used to see the children play at silver mining. Of 
course, the great thing was an accident in a mine, and there were two 
* star ' parts : that of the man who fell down the mimic shaft, and that 
of the daring hero who was lowered into the depths to bring him up. 
I knew one small chap who always insisted on playing both of these 
parts — and he carried his point. He would tumble into the shaft and 
die, and then come to the surface and go back after his own remains. 

It is the smartest boy that gets the hero-part everywhere : he is head 
guide in Switzerland, head miner in Nevada, head bull- fighter in Spain, 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



48: 



<&c, but 1 knew a preacher's son, seven years old, who once selected a 
part for himself compared to which 
those just mentioned are tame and un- 
impressive. Jimmy's father stopped 
him from driving imaginary horse-cars 
one Sunday — stopped him from playing 
captain of ah imaginary steamboat next 
Sunday — stopped him from leading 
imaginary army to 
battle the following 
Sunday — and so on. 
Finally the little 
fellow said — 

' I've tried every- 
thing, and they won't 
any of them do. What 
can I play ? ' 

1 1 hardly know, 
Jimmy; butyouwws^ 
play only things that 
are suitable to the 
Sabbath day.' 

Next Sunday the 
preacher stepped soft- 
ly to a back room 
door to see if the 
children were rightly 
employed. He peeped 
in. A chair occupied 
the middle of the room, 
and on the back of it 
hung Jimmy's cap; 
one of the little sisters 
■took the cap down, 
nibbled at it, then passed it to another small sister and said, i Eat of 
t his fruit, for it is good.' The Keverend took in the situation — alas, 
£hey were playing the Expulsion from Eden ! Yet he found one little 




CHILD-LIFE IN SWITZERLAND. 



438 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



crumb of comfort. He said to himself, ' For once Jimmy has yielded 
the chief role — I have been wronging him, I did not b< lieve there was 
so much modesty in him; I should have expected him to be either 
Adam or Eve.' This crumb of comfort lasted but a very little while ; 
he glanced around and discovered Jimmy standing in an imposing atti- 
tude in a corner, with a dark and deadly frown on his face. What 
that meant was very plain — he ivas personating the Deity ! Think of 
the guileless sublimity of that idea. 




SUNDAY PLAY. 



We reached Vispach at 8 p.m.. only about seven hours out from 
St. Nicholas. So we must have made fully a mile and a half an hour, 
and it was all down hill too, and very muddy at that. We stayed all 
night at the Hotel du Soleil ; T remember it because the landlady, the 
portier, the waitress, and the chambermaid were not separate persons, 
but were all contained in one neat and chipper suit of spotless muslin r 
and she was the prettiest young creature I saw in all that region. She 
was the landlord's daughter. And I remember that the only native 
match to her I saw in all Europe was the young daughter of the land- 
lord of a village inn in the Black Forest. Why don't more people 
in Europe marry and keep hotel ? 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



439 



Next morning we left with a family of English friends and went 
by train to Brevet, and thence by boat across the lake to Ouchy 
(Lausanne). 

Ouchy is memorable to me, not on account of its beautiful situa- 
tion and lovely surroundings — although these would make it stick long 
in one's memory — but as the place where I caught the London ' Times ' 
dropping into humour. It was 
not aware of it, though. It did 
not do it on purpose. An English 
friend called my attention to this 
lapse, and cut out the reprehen- 
sible paragraph for me. Think of 
encountering a grin like this on 
the face of that grim journal : — 

Erratum. — We are requested by 
Reuter's Telegram Company to correct 
an erroneous announcement made in 
their Brisbane telegram of the 2nd 
inst., published in our impression of 
the 5th inst., stating that ' Lady 
Kennedy had given birth to twins, 
the eldest being a son.' The Com- 
pany explain that the message they 
received contained the words ' Gover- 
nor of Queensland, twins Jirst son.' 
Being, however, subsequently in- 
formed that Sir Arthur Kennedy 
was unmarried, and that there must 
be some mistake, a telegraphic repe- 
tition was at once demanded. It has 
been received to-day (11th inst.), 
and shows that the words really 
telegraphed by Reuter's agent were, ' Governor Queensland turns Jirst sod,' 
alluding to the Maryborough-Gympie Railway in course of construction. 
The words in italics were mutilated by the telegraph in transmission from 
Australia, and reaching the company in the form mentioned above gave rise 
to the mistake. 

I had always had a deep and reverent compassion for the sufferings 
of the 4 prisoner of Chillon/ whose story Byron has told in such 
moving verse; so I took the steamer and made pilgrimage to the 




THE COMBINATION. 



440 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

dungeons of the Castle of Chillon, to see the place where poor Bonivard 
endured his dreary captivity 300 years ago. I am glad I did that, 
for it took away some of the pain I was feeling on the prisoner's 
account. His dungeon was a nice, cool, roomy place, and I cannot see 
why he should have been so dissatisfied with it. If he had been 
imprisoned in a St. Nicholas private dwelling, where the fertilizer 
prevails, and the goat sleeps with the guest, and the chickens roost on 
him, and the cow comes in and bothers him when he wants to muse, 




CHILLOX. 

it would have been another matter altogether; but he surely could 
not have had a very cheerless time of it in that pretty dungeon. It 
has romantic window-slits that let in generous bars of light, and it has 
tall, noble columns, carved apparently from the living rock ; and, what 
is more, they are written all over with thousands of names, some of 
them — like Byron's and Victor Hugo's — of the first celebrity. Why 



A TBAMP ABROAD. 



441 




didn't he amuse 
himself reading 
these names? 
Then there are 
the couriers and 
tourists — swarms 
of them every day 
— what was to 
hinder him from 
having a good 
time with them? 
1 think Boni- 
vard's sufferings 
have been over- 
rated. 

Next, we took 
train and went to 
Martigny, on the 
way to Mont 



THE TETB NOIRE. 



442 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

Blanc. Next morning we started, about eight o'clock, on foot. We 
had plenty of company in the way of waggon-loads and mule-loads of 
tourists — and dust. This scattering procession of travellers was perhaps 
a mile long. The road was up-hill — interminably up-hill — and toler- 
ably steep. The weather was blistering hot, and the man or woman 
who had to sit on a creeping mule or in a crawling waggon, and broil 
in the beating sun, was an object to be pitied. We could dodge 
among the bushes, and have the relief of the shade, but those people 
could not. They paid for a conveyance, and to get their money's worth 
they rode. 

We went by the way of the Tete Noire, and after we reached high 
ground there was no lack of fine scenery. In one place the road was 
tunnelled through a shoulder of the mountain ; from there one looked 
down into a gorge with a rushing torrent in it, and on every hand was 
a charming view of rocky buttresses and wooded heights. There was 
a liberal allowance of pretty waterfalls, too, on the Tete Noire route. 

About half an hour before we reached the village of Argentiere a 
vast dome of snow, with the sun blazing on it, drifted into view and 
framed itself in a strong V-shaped gateway of the mountains, and we 
recognised Mont Blanc, the ' monarch of the Alps.' With every step 
after that this stately dome rose higher and higher into the blue sky, 
and at last seemed to occupy the zenith. 

Some of Mont Blanc's neighbours — bare, light-brown, steeple-like 
rocks — were very peculiarly shaped. Some were whittled to a sharp 
point, and slightly bent at the upper end, like a lady's finger ; one 
monster sugar-loaf resembled a bishop's hat : it was too steep to hold 
snow on its sides, but had some in the division. 

While we were still on very high ground, and before the descent 
toward Argentiere began, we looked up toward a neighbouring moun- 
tain-top, and saw exquisite prismatic colours playing about some white 
clouds which were so delicate as to almost resemble gossamer webs. 
The faint pinks and greens were peculiarly beautiful ; none of the 
colours were deep, they were the lightest shades. They were bewitch- 
ingly commingled. We sat down to study and enjoy this singular 
spectacle. The tints remained during several minutes — flitting, chang- 
ing, melting into each other; paling almost away for a moment, then 
reflushing — a shifting, restless, unstable succession of soft opaline gleams, 



A TEA MP ABI70AD. 



443 



shimmering over that airy film of white cloud, and turning it into a 
fabric dainty enough to clothe an angel with. 

By and by we perceived what those super-delicate colours, and 
their continuous play and movement, reminded us of: it is what one 
sees in a soap-bubble that is drifting along, catching changes of tint 
from the objects it passes. A soap-bubble is the most beautiful thing, 
and the most exquisite, in nature : that lovely phantom fabric in the 
sky was suggestive of a soap-bubble split open ard spread out in the 
sun. I wonder how much it would take to buy a soap-bubble if there 




AX EXQUISITE TIIIXG. 



was only one in the world? One could buy a hatful of Koh-i-Noors 
with the same money, no doubt. 

We made the tramp from Martigny to Argentiere in eight hours. 
We beat all the mules and waggons; we didn't usually do that. We 
hired a sort of open baggage-waggon for the trip down the valley to 
Chamonix, and then devcted an hour to dining. This gave the driver 
time to get drunk. He had a friend with him, and this, friend also 
had had time to get drunk. 

When we drove off, the driver said all the tourists had arrived 
and gone by while we were at dinner ; ' but,' said he, impressively, 



444 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



i be not disturbed by that — remain tranquil — give yourselves no un- 
easiness — their dust rises far before us, you shall see it fade and dis- 
appear far behind us. Rest you tranquil, leave all to me — I am the 
king of drivers. Behold ! ' 

Down came his whip, and away we clattered. I never had such a 
shaking up in my life. The recent flooding rains had washed the 
road clear away in places, but we never stopped, we never slowed 
down, for anything. We tore right along, over rocks, rubbish, gullies, 
open fields — sometimes with one or two wheels on the ground, but 




A WILD BIDE. 



generally with none. Every now and then that calm, good-natured 
madman would bend a majestic look over his shoulder at us and say, 
' Ah, you perceive ? It is as I have said — I am the king of drivers.' 
Every time we just missed going to destruction he would say, with 
tranquil happiness, 'Enjoy it, gentlemen, it is very rare, it is very 
unusual — it is given to few to ride with the king of drivers — and 
observe it is as I have said, / am he.' 

He spoke in French, and punctuated with hiccups. His friend 
was French too, but spoke in German — using the same system of 
punctuation, however. The friend called himself the ' Captain of Mont 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



445 



Blanc,' and wanted us to make the ascent with him. He said he had 
made more ascents than any other man— forty- seven — and his brother 
had made thirty- seven. His brother was the best guide in the world, 
except himself — but he, yes, observe him well — he was the ' Captain of 
Mont Blanc ' — that title belonged to none other. 

The ' king ' was as good as his word — he overtook that long pro- 
cession of tourists and went by it like a hurricane. The result was 
that we got choicer rooms at the hotel in Chamonix than we should 
have done if his majesty had been a slower artist — or, rather, if he 
hadn't most providentially got drunk before he left Argentiere. 




SWISS PEASANT- GTTIL. 



446 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

Everybody was out of doors ; everybody was in the principal street 
01 the village — not on the side-walks, but all over the street ; every- 
body was lounging, loafing, chatting, waiting, alert, expectant, interested 
— for it was train-time. That is to say, it was diligence- time — the 
hall- dozen big diligences would soon be arriving from Geneva, and the 
village was interested, in many ways, in knowing Iioav many people 
were coming, and what sort of folk they might be. It was altogether 
the livest-looking street we had seen in any village on the Continent. 

The hotel was by the side of a booming torrent, whose music was 
loud and strong ; we could not see this torrent, for it was dark now, 
but one could locate it without a light. There was a large enclosed 
yard in front of the hotel, and this was filled with groups of villagers 
waiting to see the diligences arrive, or to hire themselves to excursion- 
ists for the morrow. A telescope stood in the yard, with its huge 
barrel canted up towards the lustrous evening star. The long porch of 
the hotel was populous with tourists, who sat in shawls and wraps under 
the vast overshadowing bulk of Mont Blanc, and gossiped or meditated. 

Never did a mountain seem so close ; its big sides seemed at one's 
very elbow, and its majestic dome, and the lofty cluster of slender 
minarets that were its neighbours, seemed to be almost over one's 
head. It was night in the streets, and the lamps were sparkling every- 
where ; the broad bases and shoulders of the mountains were in deep 
gloom, but their summits swam in a strange, rich glow which was 
really daylight, and yet had a mellow something about it which was 
very different from the hard white glare of the kind of daylight I was 
used to. Its radiance was strong and clear, but at the same time it was 
singularly soft, and spiritual, and benignant. No, it was not our harsh, 
aggressive, realistic daylight — it seemed properer to an enchanted land 
— or to heaven. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 447 

I had seen moonlight and daylight together before, bnt I had not 
-seen daylight and black night elbow to elbow before. At least I had 
not seen the daylight resting upon an object sufficiently close at hand 
before to make the contrast startling and at war with nature. 

The daylight passed away. Presently the moon rose up behind 
some of those sky- piercing fingers or pinnacles of bare rock of which 
I have spoken — they were a little to the left of the crest of Mont Blanc, 
and right over our heads — but she couldn't manage to climb high 
enough toward heaven to get entirely above them. She would show 
the glittering arch of her upper third occasionally, and scrape it along 
behind the comb-like row ; sometimes a pinnacle stood straight up, like 
a statuette of ebony, against that glittering white shield, then seemed 
to glide out of it by its own volition and power, and become a dim 
spectre, whilst the next pinnacle glided into its place and blotted the 
spotless disk with the black exclamation point of its presence. The 
top of one pinnacle took the shapely, clean-cut lorm of a rabbit's head, 
in the inkiest silhouette, while it rested against the moon. The un- 
illumined peaks and minarets, hovering vague and phantom-like above 
us while the others were painfully white and strong with snow and 
moonlight, made a peculiar effect. 

But when the moon, having passed the line of pinnacles, was hidden 
behind the stupendous white swell of Mont Blanc, the masterpiece of 
the evening was flung on the canvas. A rich greenish radiance sprang 
into the sky from behind the mountain, and in this some airy shreds 
and ribbons of vapour floated about, and being flushed with that strange 
tint, went waving to and fro like pale green flames. After a while, 
radiating bars — vast broadening fan-shaped shadows — grew up and 
stretched away to the zenith from behind the mountain. It was a spec- 
tacle to take one's breath, for the wonder of it and the sublimity. 

Indeed, those mighty bars of alternate light and shadow streaming 
up from behind that dark and prodigious form, and occupying the 
half of the dull and opaque heavens, were the most imposing and im- 
pressive marvel I had ever looked upon. There is no simile for it, for 
nothing is like it. If a child had asked me what it was, I should 
have said, ' Humble yourself in this presence, it is the glory flowing 
from the hidden head of the Creator.' One falls shorter of the truth 
than that, sometimes, in trying to explain mysteries to the little people. 



443 A TRAMP ABB AD. 

I could have found out the cause of this awe-compelling miracle by 
inquiring, for it is not infrequent at Mont Blanc — but I did not wish 
to know. We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a 
savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much 
as we gained by prying into that matter. 

We took a walk down street, a block or two, and at a place where 
four streets met and the principal shops were clustered, found the groups 
of men in the roadway thicker than ever — for this was the Exchange 
of Chamonix. These men were in the costumes of guides and porters, 
and were there to be hired. 

The office of that great personage, the Guide-in-Chiet of the Cha- 
monix Guild of Guides, was near by. This guild is a close corporation, 
and is governed by strict laws. There are many excursion routes, 
some dangerous and some not, some that can be made safely without 
a guide, and some that cannot. The bureau determines these things. 
Where it decides that a guide is necessary, you are forbidden to go 
without one. Neither are you allowed to be a victim of extortion ; the 
law states what you are to pay. The guides serve in rotation; you 
cannot select the man who is to take your life into his hands, you must 
take the worst in the lot if it is his turn. 

A guide's fee ranges all the way up from a half dollar (for some 
trifling excm-sion of a few rods) to twenty dollars, according to the dis- 
tance traversed and the nature of the ground. A guide's fee for taking 
a person to the summit of Mont Blanc and back is twenty dollars — and 
he earns it. The time employed is usually three days, and there is 
enough early rising in it to make a man far more ' healthy and wealthy 
and wise ' than any one man has any right to be. The porter's fee for 
the same trip is ten dollars. Several fools — no, I mean several tourists 
— usually go together, and divide up the expense, and thus make it 
light ; for if only one f — tourist, I mean — went, he would have to 
have several guides and porters, and that would make the matter 
costly. 

We went into the Chief's office. There were maps of mountains 
on the walls, also one or two lithographs of celebrated guides and a 
portrait of the scientist De Saussure. 

In glass cases were some labelled fragments of boots and batons, 
and other suggestive relics and remembrances of casualties on Mont 




STREET IN CHAMONTX 
G G 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



45J 



Blanc. In a book was a record of all the ascents which have ever been 

made, beginning with Nos. 1 and 2 — being those 

of Jacques Balmat and De Saussure, in 1787, and 

ending with No. 685, which wasn't cold yet. In 

fact No. 685 was standing by the official table 

waiting to receive the precious official diploma 

which should prove to his German household and 

to his descendants that he had once been indiscreet 

enough to climb to the top of Mont Blanc. He 

looked very happy when he got his document ; in 

fact, he spoke up and said he was happy. 

I tried to buy a diploma for an invalid friend 
at home who had never travelled, and whose 
desire all his life has been to ascend Mont Blanc, 
but the Guide-in- Chief rather insolently refused 
to sell me one. I was very much offended. I said 
I did not propose to be discriminated against on 
account of my nationality; that he had just sold a 
diploma to this German gentleman, and my money 
was as good as his ; I would see to it that he 

° ' THE PROUD GERMAN. 

couldn t keep shop lor Germans and deny his pro- 
duce to Americans ; I would have his licence taken away from him 
at the dropping of a handkerchief ; if France refused to break him, I 
would make an international matter of it and bring on a war ; the 
soil should be drenched with blood ; and not only that, but I would set 
up an opposition shop and sell diplomas at half price. 

For two cents I would have done these things, too ; but nobody 
offered me the two cents. I tried to move that German's feelings, but 
it could not be done; he would not give me his diploma, neither 
would he sell it to me. I told him my friend was sick and could not 
come himself, but he said he did not care a verdammtes pfennig, he 
wanted his diploma for himself — did I suppose he was going to risk 
his neck for that thing and then give it to a sick stranger ? Indeed he 
wouldn't, so he wouldn't. I resolved, then, that I would do all I 
could to injure Mont Blanc. 

In the record book was a list of all the fatal accidents which had 
happened on the mountain. It began with the one in 1820, when the 

g g 2 




452 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Russian Dr. Hamel's three guides were lost in a crevasse of the glacier, 

and it recorded the delivery of 
the remains in the valley by 
the slow-moving glacier forty- 
one years later. The latest cata- 
strophe bore date 1877. 

We stepped out and roved 
about the village a while. In 
front of the little church was 
a monument to the memory of 
the bold guide Jacques Balmat, 
the first man who ever stood 
upon the summit of Mont 
Blanc. He made that wild trip 
solitary and alone. He accom- 
plished the ascent a number of 
times afterwards. A stretch of 
nearly half a century lay be- 
tween his first ascent and his 
last one. At the ripe old age 
of seventy-two he was climbing 
around a corner of a lofty pre- 
cipice of the Pic du Midi — 
nobody with him — when he 
slipped and fell. So he died in harness. 

He had grown very avaricious in his old age, and used to go off 
stealthily to hunt for non-existent and impossible gold among those 
perilous peaks and precipices. He was on a quest of that kind when 
he lost his life. There was a statue to him, and another to De Saussure, 
in the hall of our hotel, and a metal plate on the door of a room 
upstairs bore an inscription to the effect that that room had been occu- 
pied by Albert Smith. Balmat and De Saussure discovered Mont Blanc 
— so to speak — but it was Smith who made it a paying property. 
His articles in Blackwood and his lectures on Mont Blanc in London 
advertised it and made people as anxious to see it as if it owed them 
money. 

As we strolled along the road we looked up and saw a red signal 




THE INDIGNANT TOUKIST. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 453 

light glowing in the darkness of the mountain side. It seemed but a 
trifling way up — perhaps a hundred yards, a climb of ten minutes. It 
was a lucky piece of sagacity in us that we concluded to stop a man 
whom we met and get a light for our pipes from him instead of con- 
tinuing the climb to that lantern to get a light, as had been our purpose. 
The man said that that lantern was on the Grands Mulets, some 6,500 
feet above the valley ! I know by our Riffelberg experience that it 
would have taken us a good part of a week to go up there. I would 
sooner not smoke at all than take all that trouble for a light. 

Even in the daytime the foreshortening effect of the mountain's 
close proximity creates curious deceptions. For instance, one sees with 
the naked eye a cabin up there beside the glacier, and a little above 
and beyond he sees the spot where that red light was located ; he 
thinks he could throw a stone from the one place to the other. But 
he couldn't, for the difference between the two altitudes is more than 
3,000 feet. It looks impossible, from below, that this can be true, but 
it is true, nevertheless. 

While strolling about, we kept the run of the moon all the time, 
and we still kept an eye on her after we got back to the hotel portico. 
I had a theory that the gravitation of refraction being subsidiary to 
atmospheric compensation, the refrangibility ot the earth's surface 
would emphasize this effect in regions where great mountain ranges 
occur, and possibly so even-handedly impact the odic and idyllic forces 
together, the one upon the other, as to prevent the moon from rising 
higher than 12,200 feet above sea level. This daring theory had been 
received with frantic scorn by some of my fellow- scientists, and with 
an eager silence by ethers. Among the former I may mention Prof. 

H y, and among the latter Prof. T 1. Such is professional 

jealousy; a scientist will never show any kindness for a theory which 
he did not start himself. There is no feeling of brotherhood among 
these people. Indeed, they always resent it when I call them brother. 
To show how far their ungenerosity can carry them, I will state that I 
offered to let Prof. H y publish my great theory as his own dis- 
covery; I even begged him to do it ; I even proposed to print it 
myself as his theory. Instead of thanking me, he said that if I tried 
to fasten that theory on him he would sue me for slander. I was 
going to offer it to Mr. Darwin, whom I understood to be a man 



*54 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

without prejudices, but it occurred to me that perhaps he would not 
be interested in it since it did not concern heraldry. 

But I am glad now that I was forced to father my intrepid theory 
myself, for on the night of which I am writing it was triumphantly 
justified and established. Mont Blanc is nearly 16,000 feet high; 
he hid the moon utterly; near him is a peak which is 12,216 feet 
high ; the moon slid along behind the pinnacles, and when she ap- 
proached that one I watched her with intense interest, for my reputa- 
tion as a scientist must stand or fall by its decision. I cannot describe 
the emotions which surged like tidal waves through my breast when I 
saw the moon glide behind that lofty needle and pass it by without 
exposing more than two feet four inches of her upper rim above it ! 
I was secure, then. I knew she could rise no higher, and I was right. 
She sailed behind all the peaks and never succeeded in hoisting her 
disk above a single one of them. 

While the moon was behind one of those sharp fingers, its shadow 
was flung athwart the vacant heavens — a long, slanting, clean-cut, 
dark ray, with a streaming and energetic suggestion of force about it, 
such as the ascending jet of water from a powerful fire engine affords. 
It was curious to see a good strong shadow of an earthly object cast 
upon so intangible a field as the atmosphere. 

We went to bed at last, and went quickly to sleep, but I woke 
up, after about three hours, with throbbing temples, and a head which 
was physically sore, outside and in. I was dazed, dreamy, wretched, 
seedy, unrefreshed. I recognised the occasion of all this ; it was that 
torrent. In the mountain villages of Switzerland, and along the roads, 
one has always the roar of the torrent in his ears. He imagines it is 
music, and he thinks poetic things about it ; he lies in his comfort- 
able bed and is lulled to sleep by it. But by-and-by he begins to 
notice that his head is very sore — he cannot account for it ; in soli- 
tudes where the profoundest silence reigns, he notices a sullen, distant, 
continuous roar in his ears, which is like what he would experience 
if he had sea-shells pressed against them — he cannot account for it ; he 
is drowsy and absent-minded ; there is no tenacity to his mind, be 
cannot keep hold of a thought and follow it out ; if he sits down to 
write, his vocabulary is empty, no suitable words will come, he forgets 
what he started to do, and remains there, pen in hand, head tilted up, 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



455 



eyes closed, listening painfully to the muffled rear of a distant train in 
his ears. In his soundest sleep r_lp~ T ~ ";_-_ ;*v£ ■■•'■"' '" '"V~X. 
the strain continues, he goes on *"T 
listening, always listening, in- 
tently, anxiously, and wakes at 
last, harassed, irritable, unre- 
freshed. He cannot manage to 
account for these things. Day 
after day he feels as if he had 
spent his nights in a sleeping car. 
It actually takes him weeks to 
find out that it is those persecuting 
torrents that have been making 
all the mischief. It is time for 
him to get out of Switzerland 
then, for as soon as he has dis- 
covered the cause, the misery is 
magnified several fold. The roar 
of the torrent is maddening then, 
for his imagination is assisting ; 
the physical pain it inflicts is 
exquisite. When he finds he is 
approaching one of those streams, 
his dread is so lively that he is 
disposed to fly the track and 
avoid the implacable foe. 

Eight or nine months after 
the distress of the torrents had 
departed from me, the roar and 
thunder of the streets of Paris 
brought it all back again. I 
moved to the sixth storey of the 
hotel to hunt for peace. About 
midnight the noises dulled away, 
and I Avas sinking to sleep, when 
I heard a new and curious sound. 
I listened : evidently some joyous 
lunatic was softly dancing a 




>F SWITZERLAND 



456 



A Tli AMP ABROAD. 



' double shuffle ' in the room over my head. I had to wait for him to 
get through, of course. Five long, long minutes he smoothly shuffled 

ay — a pause followed, then some- 

ng fell with a heavy thump on the 

Dr. I said to myself, ' There — he is 

[ling off his boots — thank heavens 

is done.' Another slight pause — 

went to shuffling again ! I said to 

/self, ' Is he trying to see what he 

only one boot on ? ' 

Presently came another 

pause and another 

thump on the floor. I 

said, ' G-ood, he has 

pulled off his other boot 

— now he is done. 

But he wasn't. The 

next moment he was 

shuffling again. I said 

' Confound him, he is 

at it in his slippers ! ' 

After a little came that 

same old pause, and 

that thump on the floor 

said, ' Hang him, he had 

boots ! ' For an hour 

- went on shufflin 8 and 
pulling off boots till he had shed as 

many as twenty-five pair, and I was hovering on the verge of lunacy. 

I got my gun and stole up there. The fellow was in the midst of 

an acre of sprawling boots, and he had a boot in his band, shuffling it 

— no, I mean polishing it. The mystery was explained. He hadn't 

been dancing. He was the ' Boots ' of the hotel, and was attending to 

business. 




that 



magician 




PREPARING FOR THE START. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 459 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

After breakfast, that next morning in Chamonix, we went out in the 
yard and watched the gangs of excursionising tourists arriving and 
departing with their mules and guides and porters ; then we took a look 
through the telescope at the snowy hump of Mont Blanc. It was 
brilliant with sunshine, and the vast smooth bulge seemed hardly five 
hundred yards away. With the naked eye we could dimly make out 
the house at the Pierre Pointue, which is located by the side of the 
great glacier, and is more than 3,000 feet above the level of the 
valley, but with the telescope we could see all its details. While I 
looked, a woman rode by the house on a mule, and I saw her with 
sharp distinctness ; I could have described her dress. I saw her nod 
to the people of the house, and rein np her mule, and put her hand up 
to shield her eyes from the sun. I was not used to telescopes ; in fact, 
I never had looked through a good one before; it seemed incre- 
dible to me that this woman could be so far away. I was satisfied 
that I could see all these details with my naked eye ; but when I tried 
it, that mule and those vivid people had wholly vanished, and the 
house itself had become small and vague. I tried the telescope again, 
and again everything was vivid. The strong black shadows of th& 
mule and the woman were flung against the side of the house, and I 
saw the mule's silhouette wave its ears. 

The telescopulist— or the telescopulariat — I do not know which 
is right — said a party were making the grand ascent, and would come 
in sight on the remote upper heights, presently; so we waited to> 
observe this performance. 

Presently I had a superb idea. I wanted to stand with a party 
on the summit of Mont Blanc, merely to be able to say I had done it, 



400 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

and I believed the telescope could set me within seven feet of the 
uppermost man. The telescoper assured me that it could. I then 
asked him how much I owed him for as far as I had got ? He said, 
one franc. I asked him how much it would cost me to make the entire 
ascent ? Three francs. I at once determined to make the entire ascent. 
But first I inquired if there was any danger ? He said no — not by 
telescope ; said he had taken a great many parties to the summit, and 
never lost a man. I asked what he would charge to let my agent 
:go with me, together with such guides and porters as might be 
necessary ? He said he would let Harris go for two francs ; and that 
unless we were unusually timid, he should consider guides and porters 
•unnecessary ; it was not customary to take them when going by tele- 
scope, for they were rather an incumbrance than a help. He said that 
the party now on the mountain were approaching the most difficult 
part, and if we hurried we should overtake them within ten minutes, 
and could then join them and have the benefit of their guides and porters 
without their knowledge, and without expense to us. 

I then said we would start immediately. I believe I said it calmly, 
though I was conscious of a shudder and of a paling cheek, in view of 
the nature of the exploit I was so unreflectingly engaging in. But 
the old dare-devil spirit was upon ' me, and I said that as I had 
committed myself, I would not back down; I would ascend Mont Blanc 
if it cost me my life. I told the man to slant his machine in the proper 
direction, and let us be off. 

Harris was afraid and did not want to go, but I heartened him up and 
said I would hold his hand all the way; so he gave his consent, 
though he trembled a little at first. I took a last pathetic look 
upon the pleasant summer scene about me, then boldly put my eye 
to the glass and prepared to mount among the grim glaciers and the 
everlasting snows. 

We took our way carefully and cautiously across the great Glacier 
des Bossons, over yawning and terrific crevasses and amongst im- 
posing crags and buttresses of ice, which were fringed with icicles of 
gigantic proportions. The desert of ice that stretched far and wide 
about us was wild and desolate beyond description, and the perils 
which beset us were so great that at times I was minded to turn 
back. But I pulled my pluck together and pushed on. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 461 

We passed the glacier safely and began to mount the steeps beyond, 
with great celerity. When we were seven minutes out from the 
starting point, we reached an altitude where the scene took a new 
aspect ; an apparently limitless continent of gleaming snow was tilted 
heavenward before our faces. As my eye followed that awful acclivity 
far away up into the remote skies, it seemed to me that all I had ever 
seen before of sublimity and magnitude was small and insignificant 
compared with this. 

We rested a moment, and then began to mount with speed. 
Within three minutes we caught sight of the party ahead of us, and 
stopped to observe them. They were toiling up a long, slanting 
ridge of snow — twelve persons, roped together some fifteen feet apart, 
marching in single file, and strongly marked against the clear blue 
sky. One was a woman. We could see them lift their feet and put 
them down; we saw them swing their alpenstocks forward in unison, 
like so many pendulums, and then bear their weight upon them ; we 
saw the lady wave her handkerchief. They dragged themselves up- 
wards in a worn and weary way, for they had been climbing steadily 
from the Grands Mulets, on the Glacier des Bossons, since three in the 
morning, and it was eleven now. We saw them sink down in the snow 
and rest, and drink something from a bottle. After a while they 
moved on, and as they approached the final short dash of the home- 
stretch we closed up on them and joined them. 

Presently we all stood together on the summit ! What a view 
was spread out below ! Away off under the north-western horizon 
rolled the silent billows of the Farnese Oberland, their snowy crests 
glinting softly in the subdued lights of distance; in the north rose 
the giant form of the Wobblehorn, draped from peak to shoulder in 
sable thunder-clouds; beyond him, to the right, stretched the grand 
processional summits of the Cisalpine Cordillera, drowned in a sensuous 
haze ; to the east loomed the colossal masses of the Yodelhorn, the 
Fuddlehorn, and the Dinnerhorn, their cloudless summits flashing 
white and cold in the sun ; beyond them shimmered the faint far line 
of the Ghauts of Jubbulpore and the Aiguilles des Alleghenies ; in the 
south towered the smoking peak of Popocatapetl and the unapproach- 
able altitudes of the peerless Scrabblehorn ; in the west-south-west 
the stately range of the Himalayas lay dreaming in a purple gloom ; 



462 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



and thence all around the curving horizon the eye roved over a 
troubled sea of sunkissed Alps, and noted here and there the noble 
proportions and soaring domes of the Bottlehorn, and the Saddlehorn, 
and the Shovelhorn, and the Powderhorn, all bathed in the glory of 
noon, and mottled with softly-gliding blots, the shadows flung from 
drifting clouds. 

Overcome by the scene, we all raised a triumphant, tremendous 




WE ALL RAISED A TREMENDOUS SHOUT.' 



shout, in unison. A startled man at my elbow said — 

1 Confound you, what do you yell like that for, right here in the 
street?' 

That brought me down to Chamonix like a flirt. I gave that 
man some spiritual advice and disposed of him, and then paid the 
telescope man his full fee, and said that we were charmed with 
the trip, and would remain down, and not re-ascend and require him 
to fetch us down by telescope. This pleased him very much, for of 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 463 

course we could have stepped back to the summit and put him to the 
trouble of bringing us home if we had wanted to. 

I judged we could get diplomas, now anyhow ; so we went after 
them, but the Chief Guide put us off, with one pretext or another, 
during all the time we stayed in Chamonix, and we ended by never 
getting them at all. So much for his prejudice against people's 
nationality. However, we worried him enough to make him remember 
us and our ascent for some time. He even said, once, that he wished 
there was a lunatic asylum in Chamonix. This shows that he really 
had fears that we were going to drive him mad. It was what we 
intended to do, but lack of time defeated it. 

I cannot venture to advise the reader one way or the other, as to 
ascending Mont Blanc. I say only this : if he is at all ■ timid, the 
enjoyments of the trip will hardly make up for the hardships and 
sufferings he will have to endure. But if he has good nerve, youth, 
health, and a bold, firm will, and could leave his family comfortably 
provided for in case the worst happened, he would find the ascent a 
wonderful experience, and the view from the top a vision to dream 
about, and tell about, and recall with exultation all the days of his 
life. 

While I do not advise such a person to attempt the ascent, I do 
not advise him against it. But if he elects to attempt it, let him be 
warily careful of two things : choose a calm clear day ; and do not 
pay the telescope man in advance. There are dark stories of his 
getting advance-payers on the summit, and then leaving them there 
to rot. 

A frightful tragedy was once witnessed through the Chamonix tele- 
scopes. Think of questions and answers like these, on an inquest: — 

Coroner. You saw deceased lose his life ? 

Witness. I did. 

C. Where was he at the time ? 

W. Close to the summit of Mont Blanc. 

C. Where were you ? 

W. In the main street of Chamonix. 

C. What was the distance between you ? 

W. A little over Jive miles, as the bird flies. 

This accident occurred in 1866 a year and a month after the 



464 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

disaster on the Matterhorn. Three adventurous English gentlemen l 
of great experience in mountain climbing, made up their minds to 
ascend Mont Blanc without guides or porters. All endeavours to 
dissuade them from their project failed. Powerful telescopes are nume- 
rous in Chamonix. These huge brass tubes, mounted on their scaffold- 
ings and pointing skyward from every choice vantage-ground, have 
the formidable look of artillery, and give the town the general 
aspect of getting ready to repel a charge of angels. The reader may 
easily believe that the telescopes had plenty of custom on that August 
morning in 1866, for everybody knew of the dangerous undertaking 
which was on foot, and all had fears that misfortune would result. 
All the morning the tubes remained directed towards the moun- 
tain heights, each with its anxious group around it ; but the white 
deserts were vacant. 

At last, towards eleven o'clock, the people who were looking through 
the telescopes cried out, ' There they are ! ' — and sure enough, far up 
on the loftiest terraces of the Grand Plateau, the three pygmies 
appeared, climbing with remarkable vigour and spirit. They dis- 
appeared in the i Corridor,' and were lost to sight during an hour. 
Then they reappeared, and were presently seen standing together upon 
the extreme summit of Mont Blanc. So far, all was well. They 
remained a few minutes on that highest point of land in Europe, a 
target for all the telescopes, and were then seen to begin the descent. 
Suddenly all three vanished. An instant after, they appeared again,. 
two thousand feet below/ 

Evidently they had tripped and been shot down an almost per- 
pendicular slope of ice to a point where it joined the border of the 
upper glacier. Naturally the distant witnesses supposed they were 
now looking upon three corpses; so they could hardly believe their 
eyes when they presently saw two of the men rise to their feet and 
bend over the third. During two hours and a half they watched the- 
two busying themselves over the extended form of their brother, who 
seemed entirely inert. Chamonix's affairs stood still ; everybody was- 
in the street, all interest was centred upon what was going on upon 
that lofty and isolated stage five miles away. Finally the two — one 
oi them walking with great difficulty — were seen to begin the descent,. 
1 Sir George Young and his brothers James and Albert. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 465 

abandoning the third, who was no doubt lifeless. Their movements 
were followed, step by step, until they reached the < Corridor ' and dis- 
appeared behind its ridge. Before they had had time to traverse the 
« Corridor ' and reappear, twilight was come, and the power of the 
telescopes was at an end. 

The survivors had a most perilous journey before them in the 




THE GRANDS MULETS. 

gathering darkness, for they must get down to the Grands Mulets 
before they would find a safe stopping-place — a long and tedious 
descent, and perilous enough even in good daylight. The oldest guides 
expressed the opinion that they could not succeed ; that all the chances 
were that they would lose their lives. 

Yet those brave men did succeed. They reached the Grands Mulets 
in safety. Even the fearful shock which their nerves had sustained was 

H H 



466 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



not sufficient to overcome their coolness and courage. It would 
appear from the official account that they were threading their way- 
down through those dangers from the closing in of twilight until two 
o'clock in the morning, or later; because the rescuing party from 
Chamonix reached the Grands Mulets about three in the morning, 




ABIN ON THE GRANDS MULETS. 



and moved thence towards the scene of the disaster under the leader- 
ship of Sir George Young, 'who had only just arrived.' 

After having been on his feet twenty-four hours in the ex- 
hausting work of mountain-climbing, Sir George began the re-ascent 
at the head of the relief party of six guides, to recover the corpse 
of his brother. This was considered a new imprudence, as the 
number was too few for the service required. Another relief party 
presently arrived at the cabin on the Grands Mulets, and quartered 



A I RAMP ABROAD. -107 

themselves there to await events. Ten hours after Sir George's 
departure towards the summit, this new relief were still scanning the 
snowy altitudes above them from their own high perch among the 
ice-deserts 10,000 feet above the level of the sea ; but the whole fore- 
noon had passed without a glimpse of any living thing appearing up 
there. 

This was alarming. Half a dozen of their number set out, then, 
early in the afternoon, to seek and succour Sir George and his guides. 
The persons remaining at the cabin saw these disappear, and then 
ensued another distressing wait. Four hours passed without tidings. 
Then at five o'clock another relief, consisting of three guides, set for- 
ward from the cabin. They carried food and cordials for the refresh- 
ment of their predecessors ; they took lanterns with them, too. Night 
was coming on ; and, to make matters worse, a fine, cold rain had begun 
to fall. 

At the same hour that these three began their dangerous ascent 
the official Guide-in- Chief of the Mont Blanc region undertook the 
dangerous descent to Chamonix, all alone, to get reinforcements. How- 
ever, a couple of hours later, at 7 p.m., the anxious solicitude came to 
an end, and happily. A bugle note was heard, and a cluster of black 
specks was distinguishable against the snows of the upper heights. 
The watchers counted these specks eagerly — fourteen. Nobody was 
missing. An hour and a half later they were all safe under the roof 
of the cabin. They had brought the corpse with them. Sir George 
Young tarried there but a few minutes, and then began the long and 
troublesome descent from the cabin to Chamonix. He probably 
reached there about two or three o'clock in the morning, after having 
been afoot among the rocks and glaciers during two days and two nights. 
His endurance was equal to his daring. 

The cause of the unaccountable delay of Sir George and the relief 
parties among the heights where the disaster had happened was a thick 
fog ; or partly that, and partly the slow and difficult work of convey- 
ing the dead body down the perilous steeps. 

The corpse, upon being viewed at the inquest, showed no bruises, 
and it was some time before the surgeons discovered that the neck was 
broken. One of the surviving brothers had sustained some unim- 
portant injuries, but the other had suffered no hurt at all. How 

hh 2 



468 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



these men could fall 2,000 feet almost perpendicularly, and live after- 
wards, is a most strange and unaccountable thing. 

A great many women have made the ascent of Mont Blanc. An 
English girl, Miss Stratton, conceived the daring idea, two or three 
years ago, of attempting the ascent in the middle of winter. She tried 
it, and she succeeded. Moreover, she froze two of her fingers on the 
way up ; she fell in love with her guide on the summit, and she 

married him when she got to the 
bottom again. There is nothing in 
romance, in the way of a striking ' situ- 
ation,' which can beat this love scene in 
mid-heaven on an isolated ice-crest with 
the thermometer at zero and an Arctic 
gale blowing. 

The first woman who ascended 

Mont Blanc was a girl aged twenty-two, 

Mdlle. Maria Paradis— 1809. Nobody 

was with her but her sweetheart, and he 

was not a guide. The sex then took a 

rest for about thirty years, when a 

Mdlle. d'Angeville made the ascent — 

1838. In Chamonix I picked up a. 

rude old lithograph of that day which 

! pictured her ' in the act.' However, 

I value it less as a work of art than 

as a fashion-plate. Miss d'Angeville 

on a pair of men's pantaloons to climb in, 

which was wise ; but she cramped their utility 

by adding her petticoat, which was idiotic. 

One of the mournfullest calamities which 
men's disposition to climb dangerous mountains has resulted in 
happened on Mont Blanc in September 1870. Mr. d'Arve tells the 
story briefly in his ' Histoire du Mont Blanc' In the next chaoter I 
will copy its chief features. 




KEEPING WA11M 



A TEAMP ABROAD. 469 



CHAPTER XLV. 

A CATASTROPHE WHICH COST ELEVEN LIVES. 

'On September 5, 1870, a caravan of eleven persons departed from 
Chamonix to make the ascent of Mont Blanc. Three of the party 
were tourists : Messrs. Randall and Bean, Americans, and Mr. George 
Corkindale, a Scotch gentleman ; there were three guides and five 
porters. The cabin on the Grands Mulets was reached that day ; the 
ascent was resumed early the next morning, September 6. The day 
was fine and clear, and the movements of the party were observed 
through the telescopes of Chamonix ; at two o'clock in the afternoon 
they were seen to reach the summit. A few minutes later they 
were seen making the first steps of the descent ; then a cloud closed 
around them and hid them from view. 

Eight hours passed, the cloud still remained, night came, no one 
had returned to the Grands Mulets. Syivain Couttet, keeper of the 
cabin there, suspected a misfortune, and sent down to the valley ibr 
help. A detachment ot guides went up, and by the time they had 
made the tedious trip and reached the cabin, a raging storm had set 
in. They had to wait ; nothing could be attempted in such a tempest. 

The wild storm lasted more than a week, without ceasing ; but 
on the 17th, Couttet, with several guides, left the cabin and succeeded 
in making the ascent. In the snowy wastes near the summit they came 
upon five bodies, lying upon their sides in a reposeful attitude, which 
suggested that possibly they had fallen asleep, there, while exhausted 
"with fatigue and hunger, and benumbed with cold, and never knew 
-when death stole upon them. Couttet moved a few steps farther and 



470 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

discovered five more bodies. The eleventh corpse — that of a porter 
— was not found, although diligent search was made for it. 

In the pocket of Mr. Bean, one of the Americans, was found a 
note-book in which had been pencilled some sentences which admit us, 
in flesh and spirit, as it were, to the presence of these men during their 
last hours of life, and to the grisly horrors which their fading vision 
looked upon and their failing consciousness took cognizance of: — 

Tuesday, Sept. 6. — I have made the ascent of Mont Blanc, with ten 
persons — eight guides, and Mr. Oorkindale and Mr. Randall. We reached 
the summit at half-past two. Immediately after quitting it, we were enve- 
loped in clouds of snow. We passed the night in a grotto hollowed in 
the snow, which afforded but poor shelter, and I was ill all night. 

Sept. 7, Morning. — The cold is excessive. The snow falls heavily and 
without interruption. The guides take no rest. 

Evening. — My Dear Hessie, we have been two days on Mont Blanc, 
in the midst of a terrible hurricane of snow, we have lost our way, and are- 
in a hole scooped in the snow, at an altitude of 15,000 feet. I have no- 
longer any hope of descending. 

They had wandered around, and around, in that blinding snow 
storm, hopelessly lost, in a space only a hundred yards square ; and 
when cold and fatigue vanquished them at last, they scooped their cave- 
and lay down there to die by inches, unaware that five steps more would 
have brought them into the true path. They were so near to life and: 
safety as that, and did not suspect it ! The thought of this gives the- 
sharpest pang that the tragic story conveys. 

The author of the ' Histoire du Mont Blanc ' introduces the closing- 
sentences of Mr. Bean's pathetic record thus: — 

1 Here the characters are large and unsteady ; the hand which 
traces them is become chilled and torpid ; but the spirit survives, and 
the faith and resignation of the dying man are expressed with a. 
sublime simplicity.' 

Perhaps this note-book will be found and sent to you. We have nothing 
to eat, my feet are already frozen, and I am exhausted ; I have strength 
to write only a few words more. I have left means for C.'s education ; I 
know you will employ them wisely. I die with faith in God, and -with 
loving thoughts of you. Farewell to all. We shall meet again, in Heaven, 
, , . I think of you always. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



471 



It is the way of the Alps to deliver death to their victims with 
a merciful swiftness, but here the rule failed. These men suffered the 
bitterest death that has been recorded in the history of those mountains, 
freighted as that history is with grisly tragedies. 




ON THE ALPS. 



472 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XL VI. 

Mr. Harris and I took some guides and porters, and ascended to the 
Hotel des Pyramides, which is perched on the high moraine which 
borders the Glacier des Bossons. The road led sharply up hill, all 
the way, through grass and flowers and woods, and was a pleasant 
walk, barring the fatigue of the climb. 

From the hotel we could view the huge glacier at very close range. 
After a rest we followed down a path which had been made in the 
steep inner frontage of the moraine, and stepped upon the glacier 
itself. One of the shows of the place was a tunnel-like cavern, which 
had been hewn in the glacier. The proprietor of this tunnel took 
candles, and conducted us into it. It was three or four feet wide and 
about six feet high. Its walls of pure and solid ice emitted a soft and 
rich blue light that produced a lovely effect, and suggested enchanted 
caves, and that sort of thing. When we had proceeded some yards 
and were entering darkness, we turned about and had a dainty 
sun-lit picture of distant woods and heights framed in the strong arch 
of the tunnel and seen through the tender blue radiance of the tunnel's 
atmosphere. 

The cavern was nearly a hundred yards long, and when we 
reached its inner limit the proprietor stepped into a branch tunnel with 
his candles, and left us buried in the bowels of the glacier, and in 
pitch darkness. We judged his purpose was murder and robbery; 
so we got out our matches and prepared to sell our lives as dearly as 
possible by setting the glacier on fire if the worst came to the worst — 
but we soon perceived that this man had changed his mind ; he began 
to sing, in a deep melodious voice, and woke some curious and pleasing 
echoes. By-and-by he came back and pretended that that was what 
he had gone behind there for. We believed as much of that as we 
wanted to. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Thus our lives had been once more in imminent peril, but by the 
exercise of the swift sagacity and cool courage which had saved us 
so often, we had added another escape to the long list. The tourist 
should visit that ice-cavern, by all means, for it is well worth the 
trouble ; but I would advise him to go only with a strong and well 
armed force. I do not consider artillery necessary, yet it would not be 
unadvisable to take it along if convenient. The journey, going and 
coming, is about three miles and a half, three of which are on level 
ground. We made it in less than a day, but I would counsel the 
unpractised, if not pressed for 
time, to allow themselves two. 
Nothing is gained in the Alps 
by over-exertion; nothing is 
gained by crowding two days' 
work into one for the poor sake 
of being able to boast of the 
exploit afterwards. It will 
be found much better, in the 
long run, to do the thing in 
two days, and then subtract one 
of them from the narrative. 
This saves fatigue, and does not 
injure the narrative. All the 
more thoughtful among the 
Alpine tourists do this. 

We now called upon the 
Guide-in- Chief, and asked for a squadron of guides and porters for 
the ascent of the Montanvert. This idiot glared at us, and said — 

' You don't need guides and porters to go to the Montanvert.' , 

1 What do we need, then ? ' 

' Such as you ? — an ambulance ! ' 

I was so stung by this brutal remark that I took my custom else- 
where. 

Betimes, next morning, we had reached an altitude of 5,000 feet 
above the level of the sea. Here we camped and breakfasted. There 
was a cabin there — the spot is called the Caillet — and a spring of 
ice-cold water. On the door of the cabin was a sign, in French, to 




TAKE IT EASY. 



47-1 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

the effect that l One may here see a living chamois for 50 centimes. 5 ' 
We did not invest ; what we wanted was to see a dead one. 

A little' after noon we ended the ascent, and arrived at the new 
hotel on the Montanvert, and had a view of six miles, right up the 
great glacier, the famous Mer de Glace. At this point it is like a sea 
whose deep swales and long rolling swells have been caught in mid- 
movement and frozen solid ; but farther up it is broken up into wildly- 
tossing billows of ice. 

We descended a ticklish path, in the steep side of the moraine, 
and invaded the glacier. There were tourists of both sexes scattered 
far and wide over it everywhere, and it had the festive look of a 
skating rink. 

The Empress Josephine came this far once. She ascended the 
Montanvert in 1810 — but not alone ; a small army of men preceded 
her to clear the path — and carpet it, perhaps, — and she followed, under 
the protection of sixty-eight guides. 

Her successor visited Chamonix later, but in far different style. 
It was seven weeks after the first fall of the Empire, and poor Marie 
Louise, ex-Empress, was a fugitive. She came at night, and in a 
storm, with only two attendants, and stood before a peasant's hut, tired, 
bedraggled, soaked with rain, ' the red print of her lost crown still 
girdling her brow,' and implored admittance — and was refused ! A 
few days before, the adulations and applause o£ a nation were sounding 
in her ears, and now she was come to this ! 

We crossed the Mer de Glace in safety, but we had misgivings. 
The crevasses in the ice yawned deep and blue and mysterious, 
and it made one nervous to traverse them. The huge round waves 
of ice were slippery and difficult to climb, and the chances of tripping 
and sliding down them and darting into a crevasse, were too many to 
be comfortable. 

In the bottom of a deep swale between two of the biggest of the 
ice-waves, we found a fraud who pretended to be cutting steps to ensure 
the safety of tourists. He was ' soldiering ' when we came upon him, 
but he hopped up and chipped out a couple of steps about big enough 
for a cat, and charged us a franc or two for it. Then he sat down 
again, to doze till the next party should come along. He had collected 
black mail from two or three hundred people already, that day, but 



1 


1 




A TRAMP ABROAD. 



477 



nad not chipped out ice enough to impair the glacier perceptibly. I 
have heard of a good many soft sinecures, but it seems to me that 
keeping tollbridge on a glacier is the softest one I have encountered 
yet. 

That was a blazing hot day, and it brought a persistent and per- 




secuting thirst with it. What an unspeakable luxury it was to slake 
that thirst with the pure and limpid ice-water of the glacier I 
Down the sides of every great rib of ice poured limpid rills in gutters 
carved by their own attrition ; better still, wherever a rock had lain, 
there was now a bowl-shaped hole, with smooth white sides and 
bottom of ice, and this bowl was brimming with water of such 
absolute clearness that the careless observer would not see it at all r 
but would think the bowl w^s empty. These fountains had such an 
alluring look that I often stretched myself out when I was not thirsty 
and dipped my face in and drank till my teeth ached. Everywhere- 
among the Swiss mountains we had at hand the blessing — not to be 
found in Europe, except in the mountains, — of water capable of quench- 
ing thirst. Everywhere in the Swiss highlands brilliant little rills 
of exquisitely cold water went dancing along by the roadsides, and 



478 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

my comrade and I were always drinking and always delivering our deep 
gratitude. 

But in Europe everywhere, except in the mountains, the water 
is flat and insipid beyond the power of words to describe. It is served 
lukewarm ; but no matter, ice could not help it ; it is incurably flat, 
incurably insipid. It is only good to wash with ; I wonder it doesn't 
occur to the average inhabitant to try it for that. In Europe the 
people say contemptuously, * Nobody drinks water here.' Indeed they 
have a sound and sufficient reason. In many places they even have 
what may be called prohibitory reasons. In Paris and Munich, for 
instance, they say, ' Don't drink the water, it is simply poison.' 

Either America is healthier than Europe, notwithstanding her 
4 deadly ' indulgence in ice- water, or she does not keep the run of her 
death-rate as sharply as Europe does. I think we do keep up the 
death statistics accurately; and if we do, our cities are healthier than 
the cities of Europe. Every month the German government tabulates 
the death-rate of the world and publishes it. I scrap-booked these 
reports during several months, and it was curious to see how regular 
and persistently each city repeated its same death-rate month after 
month. The tables might as well have been stereotyped, they varied 
so little. These tables were based upon weekly reports showing 
the average of deaths in each 1,000 of population for a year. Munich 
was always present with her 33 deaths in each 1,000 of her 
population (yearly average), Chicago was as constant with her 15 or 
17, Dublin with her 48 — and so on. 

Only a few American cities appear in these tables, but they are 
scattered so widely over the country, that they furnish a good general 
average of city health in the United States ; and I think it will be 
granted that our towns and villages are healthier than our cities. 

Here is the average of the only American cities reported in the 
German tables : — 

Chicago, deaths in 1,000 of population annually, 16; Philadelphia, 
18; St. Louis, 18; San Francisco, 19; New York (the Dublin of 
America), 23. 

See how the figures jump up, as soon as one arrives at the Trans- 
atlantic list : — 

Paris, 27 ; Glasgow, 27 London, 28; Vienna, 28; Augsburg, 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



479 



m 



28; Hraunschweig, 28 Konigsberg, 29 ; Cologne, 29 ; Dresden, 29; 
Hamburg, 29 ; Berlin, 30 ; Bombay, 30 ; Warsaw, 31 ; Breslau, 31 ; 
Odessa, 32 ; Munich, 33 ; Strasburg, 33 ; Pesth, 35 ; Cassel, 35 ; 
Lisbon, 36 ; Liverpool, 36 ; Prague, 37 ; Madras, 37 ; Bucharest, 39 ; 
St. Petersburg, 40; Trieste, 40; Alexandria (Egypt), 43; Dublin, 
48 ; Calcutta, 55. 

Edinburgh is as healthy as New York — 23 ; but there is no city 
in the entire list which is healthier, except Frankfort- on -the-Main 
— 20. But Frankfort is not as healthy as Chicago, San Francisco, 
St. Louis, or Philadelphia. 

Perhaps a strict average of the world might 
develop the fact that where 1 in 1,000 of 
America's population dies, 2 in 1,000 of the 
other populations of the earth succumb. 
I do not like to make insinuations, but I 
do think the above 
statistics darkly 
suggest that these 
people over here 
drink this detest- 
able water 'on the 
sly.' 

We climbed the 
moraine on the 
opposite side of the 
glacier, and then 
crept along its sharp 
ridge a hundred 
yards or so, in 
pretty constant 
danger of a tumble 
to the glacier be- 
low. The fall would 
only have been 
100 feet, but it 
would have closed 
me out as effec- 
tually as 1,000 feet. 




A DESCENDING TOURIST. 



430 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



thing to 



therefore I respected the distance accordingly, and was glad when the 
trip was done. A moraine is an ugly thing to assault head-first. At a 
distance it looks like an endless grave of fine sand, accurately shaped and 
nicely smoothed ; but close by, it is found to be made mainly of rough 
boulders of all sizes, from that of a man's head to that of a cottage. 
By-and-by we came to the Mauvais Pas, or, the Villainous Koad, 
— =-" ~^i to translate it feelingly. It was a break- 
1 neck path around the face of a precipice 
forty or fifty feet high, and no- 
Lang on to but some 
iron railings. I got 
nlong, slowly, safely, 
and uncomfortably, and 
finally reached the 
middle. My hopes 
began to rise a little, 
but they were quickly 
blighted ; for there I 
met a hog — a long- 
nosed bristly fellow, 
that held up his snout 
and worked his nostrils 
at me inquiringly. A 
hog on a pleasure 
excursion in Switzer- 
land — think of it. It is 
striking and unusual ; 
a body might write a 
poem about it. He 
could not retreat, if he '• 
had been disposed to do 
it. It would have been 
foolish to stand upon our dignity in a place where there was hardly 
room to stand upon our feet, so we did nothing of the sort. There were 
twenty or thirty ladies and gentlemen behind us ; we all turned about 
and went back, and the hog followed behind. The creature did not 
seem set up by what he had done ; he had probably done it before. 




LEAVING BY DILIGENCE 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



431 



We reached the restaurant on the height called the Chateau at four 
in the afternoon. It was a memento factory, and the stock was 
large, cheap and varied. I bought the usual papercutter to remember 
the place by, and had Mont Blanc, the Mauvais Pas, and the rest of 
the region branded on my alpenstock ; then we descended to the valley, 
and walked home without being tied together. This was not dangerous, 
for the valley was five miles wide, 
and quite level. 

We reached the hotel before nine 
o'clock. Next morning we left for 
Geneva on top of the diligence, under 
shelter of a gay awning. If I 
remember rightly, there were more 
than twenty people up there. It 
was so high that the ascent was 
made by ladder. The huge vehicle 
was full everywhere, inside and out. 
Five other diligences left at the same 
time, all full. We had engaged our 
seats two days beforehand, to make 
sure, and paid the regulation price, i » 
five dollars each ; but the rest of the ^ " 
company were wiser; they had trusted ^' 
Baedeker, and waited ; consequently, 
some of them got their seats for *^2^J> 
one or two dollars. Baedeker knows all about hotels, railway and 
diligence companies, and speaks his mind freely. He is a trustworthy 
friend of the traveller. 

We never saw Mont Blanc at his best until we were many miles 
away ; then he lifted his majestic proportions high into the heavens, all 
white and cold and solemn, and made the rest of the world seem little 
and plebeian, and cheap and trivial. 

As he passed out of sight at last, an old Englishman settled 
himself in his seat and said — 

1 Well, I am satisfied. I have seen the principal features of Swiss 
scenery — Mont Blanc and the goitre — now for home 1 ' 



'fe 




\.'. [■: ftcmn 



II 



482 A TRAMP ABROAD, 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

We spent a few pleasant restful days at Geneva, that delightful city 
where accurate time-pieces are made for all the rest of the world, but 
whose own clocks never give the correct time of day by any accident. 

Geneva is filled with pretty little shops, and the shops are filled 
with the most enticing gimcrackery ; but if one enters one of these 
places he is at once pounced upon, and followed up, and so persecuted 
to buy this, that, and the other thing, that he is very grateful to get 
out again, and is not at all apt to repeat his experiment. The shop- 
keepers of the smaller sort, in Geneva, are as troublesome and per- 
sistent as are the salesmen of that monster hive in Paris, the Grand 
Magasin du Louvre — an establishment where ill-marmered pestering, 
pursuing and insistence have been reduced to a science. 

In Geneva, prices in the smaller shops are very elastic — that is 
another bad feature. I was looking in at a window at a very pretty 
striiig of beads, suitable for a child. I was only admiring them; I had 
no use for them ; I hardly ever wear beads. The shopwoman came 
out and offered them to me for thirty-five francs. I said it was cheap, 
but I did not need them. 

* Ah, but, monsieur, they are so beautiful!' 

I confessed it, but said they were not suitable for one of my age 
and simplicity of character. She darted in and brought them out, 
and tried to force them into my hands, saying — 

' Ah, but only see how lovely they are ! Surely monsieur Avill 
take them; monsieur shall have them for thirty francs. There, I 
have said it — it is a loss, but one must live ! ' 

I dropped my hands and tried to move her to respect my unpro- 
tected situation. But no, she dangled the beads in the sun before my 
face, exclaiming, ' Ah, monsieur cannot resist them ! ' She hung them 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



483 



on my coat button, folded her hands resignedly, and said, ' Gone — and 
for\thirty francs, the lovely things, it is incredible ! but the good God 
will sanctify the sacrifice to me.' 

I removed them gently, returned them, and walked away, shaking 
my head and smiling a smile of silly embarrassment, while the passers- 
by halted to observe. The woman leaned out of her door, shook the 
beads, and screamed after me — 

* Monsieur shall have them for twenty-eight ' ' 




HIGH PRESSURE. 

I shook my head. 

' Twenty- seven ! It is a cruel loss, it is ruin — but take them, only 
take them.' 

I still retreated, still wagging my head. 

' Mon Dieu, they shall even go for twenty- six ! There, I have said 
it. Come ! ' 

I wagged another negative. A nurse and a little English girl 
had been near me, and were following me, now. The shop woman 
ran to the nurse, thrust the beads into her hands and said — 

I 12 



4S4 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

' Monsieur shall have them for twenty-five ! Take them to the 
hotel — he shall send me the money to-morrow — next day — when he 
likes.' Then to the child : ' When thy father sends me the money, 
come thou also, my angel, and thou shalt have something, oh so pretty.' 

I was thus providentially saved. The nurse refused the beads 
squarely and firmly, and that ended the matter. 

The ' sights ' of Geneva are not numerous. I made one attempt 
to hunt up the houses once inhabited by those two disagreeable people, 
Eousseau and Calvin, but had no success. Then I concluded to .go 
home. I found it was easier to propose to do that than to do it; for 
that town is a bewildering place. I got lost in a tangle of narrow 
and crooked streets, and stayed lost for an hour or two. Finally I 
found a street which looked somewhat familiar, and said to myself, 
* Now I am at home, I judge.' But I was wrong ; this was ' Hell 
Street.' Presently I found another place which had a familiar look, 
and said to myself, ' Now I am at home, sure.' It was another error. 
This was l Purgatory Street.' After a little I said, ' Now I've got to 

the right place, anyway no, this is " Paradise Street ; " I'm 

farther from home than I was in the beginning.' Those were queer 
names — Calvin was the author of them, likely. ' Hell ' and ' Purga- 
tory ' fitted those two streets like a glove, but the ' Paradise ' appeared 
to be sarcastic. 

I came out on the lake front, at last, and then I knew where I was. 
I was walking along before the glittering jewellery shops when I saw 
a curious performance. A lady passed by, and a trim dandy lounged 
across the walk in such an apparently carefully-timed way as to bring 
himself exactly in front of her when she got to him ; he made no offer 
to step out of the way; he did not apologize ; he did not even notice 
her. She had to stop still and let him lounge by. I wondered if he 
had done that piece of brutality purposely. He strolled to a chair and 
seated himself at a small table; two or three other males were sitting 
at similar tables sipping sweetened water. I waited ; presently a 
youth came by, and this fellow got up and served him the same trick. 
Still, it did not seem possible that anyone could do such a thing 
deliberately. To satisfy my curiosity I went around the block, and, 
sure enough, as I approached, at a good round speed, he got up and 
lounged lazily across my path, fouling my course exactly at the right 



A TRAMP ABROAD 



485 



moment to receive all my weight, 
performances had not 
been accidental, but in- 
tentional. 

I saw that dandy's 
curious game played 
afterwards in Paris, but 
not for amusement ; not 
with a motive of any 



This proved that his previous 
sort, indeed, but 
simply from a 
selfish indiffer- 
to other 





KO APOLOGY. 



ence 

people's comfort 
and rights. One 
does not see it 
as frequently in 
Paris as he might 
expect to, for 
there the law 
says, in effect, 
' It is the busi- 
ness of the weak 
to get out of the way of the strong.' We 
fine a cabman if he runs over a citizen ; 
Paris fines the citizen for being run over. 
At least so everybody says — but I saw 
something which caused me to doubt ; I 
saw a horseman run over an old woman 
" saa one* day — the police arrested him and took 
him away. That looked as if they meant 
to punish him. 

It will not do for me to find merit in American manners — for are 
they not the standing butt for the jests of critical and polished Europe ? 
Still I must venture to claim one little matter of superiority in our man- 
ners — a lady may traverse our streets all day going and coming as she 
chooses, and she will never be molested by any man ; but if a lady 
unattended walks abroad in the streets of London, even at noonday, 
she will be pretty likely to be accosted and insulted ; and not by 
drunken sailors, but by men who carry the look and wear the dress of 
gentlemen. It is maintained that these people are not gentlemen, but 
are a lower sort disguised as gentlemen. The case of Colonel Valen- 
tine Baker obstructs that argument, for a man cannot become an 
officer in the British army except he hold the rank of gentleman. This 
person, finding himself alone in a railway compartment with an un- 



NONE ASKED. 



4SG 



A TBAJ/P ABROAD. 



protected girl — but it is an atrocious story, and doubtless the reader 
remembers it well enough. London must have been more or less 
accustomed to Bakers, and the ways of Bakers, else London would 
have been offended and excited. Baker was ' imprisoned ' — in a 
parlour ; and he could not have been more visited, or more over- 
whelmed with attentions, if he had committed six murders, and then — 
while the gallows was preparing — ' got religion ' — after the manner of 
the holy Charles Peace, of saintly memory. Arkansaw — it seems a 
little indelicate to be trumpeting forth our own superiorities, and com- 
parisons are always 
odious, but still — 
Arkansaw would cer- 
tainly have hanged 
Baker. I do not say 
she would have tried 
him first, but she 
would have hanged 
him, any way. 

Even the most 
degraded woman can 
walk our streets un- 
molested, her sex and 
her weakness being 
her sufficient protec- 
tion. She will en- 
counter less polish 
than she would in the 
old world, but she will 
run across enough 
humanity to make up 
for it. 

The music of a 
donkey awoke us early 
in the morning, and we rose up and made ready for a pretty formidable 
walk — to Italy ; but the road was so level that we took the train. We 
lost a good deal of time by this, but it was no matter, we were not in a 
hurry. We were four hours going to Chambery. The Swiss trains 




A LIVELY STREET. 



A Tit AMP ABROAD. 



487 



go upwards of three miles an hour, in places, but they are quite 
safe. 

That aged French town of Chambery was as quaint and crooked as 
Heilbronn. A drowsy reposeful quiet reigned in the back streets which 
made strolling through them very pleasant, barring the almost unbear- 
able heat of the sun. In one of these streets, which was eight feet wide, 
gracefully curved, and built up with small antiquated houses, I saw 
three fat hogs lying asleep, and a boy (also asleep), taking care of 




HAVING HER FULL MIGHTS. 

them. From queer old-fashioned windows along the curve, projected 
boxes of bright flowers, and over the edge of one of these boxes hung 
the head and shoulders of a cat — asleep. The five sleeping creatures 
were the only living things visible in that street. There was not a 
sound ; absolute stillness prevailed. It was Sunday ; one is not used 
to such dreamy Sundays on the Continent. In our part of the town 
it was different that night. A regiment of brown and battered soldiers 



488 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

had arrived home from Algiers, and I judged they got thirsty on the 
way. They sang and drank till dawn, in the pleasant open air. 

We left for Turin at ten the next morning by a railway, which 
was profusely decorated with, tunnels. We forgot to take a lantern 
along, consequently we missed all the scenery. Our compartment was 
full. A ponderous tow-headed Swiss woman, who put on many fine- 
lady airs, but was evidently more used to washing linen than wearing 
it, sat in a corner seat and put her legs across into the opposite one, 
propping them intermediately with her up-ended valise. In the seat 
thus pirated sat two Americans, greatly incommoded by that woman's 
majestic coffin-clad feet. One of them begged her, politely, to remove 
them. She opened her wide eyes and gave him a stare, but answered 
nothing. By-and-by he preferred his request again, with great re- 
spectfulness. She said, in good English, and in a deeply offended tone, 
that she had paid her passage and was not going to be bullied out of her 
1 rights' by ill-bred foreigners, even if she was alone and unprotected. 

I But I have rights also, madam. My ticket entitles me to a seat, 
but you are occupying half of it.' 

I I will not talk with you, sir. What right have you to speak to me ? 
I do not know you. One would know you came from a land where there 
are no gentlemen. No gentleman would treat a lady as you have treated 
me.' 

' I come from a region where a lady would hardly give me the same 
provocation.' 

* You have insulted me, sir ! You have intimated that I am not a 
lady — and I hope I am not one, after the pattern of your country.' 

* I beg that you will give yourself no alarm on that head, madam ; 
but at the same time I must insist — always respectfully — that you let 
me have my seat.' 

Here the fragile laundress burst into tears and sobs. 

1 1 never was so insulted before ! Never, never ! It is shameful, it 
is brutal, it is base, to bully and abuse an unprotected lady who has lost 
the use of her limbs and cannot put her feet to the floor without 
agony ! ' 

1 Good heavens, madam, why didn't you say that at first ! I offer 
a thousand pardons. And I offer them most sincerely. I did not know — 
I could not know — that anything was the matter. You are most welcome 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



489 



to the seat, and would have been from the first if I had only known. I 
am truly sorry it all happened, I do assure you.' 

But he couldn't get a word of forgiveness out of her. She simply, 
sobbed and snuffled in a subdued but wholly unappeasable way for 
two long hours, meantime crowding the man more than ever with her 
undertaker-furniture, and paying no sort of attention to his frequent 
and humble little efforts to do something for her comfort. Then the 
train halted at the Italian line, and she hopped up and marched out of 
the car with as firm a leg as any washerwoman of all her tribe ! And 
how sick I was to see how she had fooled me ! * 

Turin is a very fine city. In 
the matter of roominess it tran- 
scends anything that was ever 
dreamed of before, I fancy. It 
sits in the midst of a vast dead- 
level, and one is obliged to 
imagine that land may be had 
for the asking, and no taxes to 
pay, so lavishly do they use it. 
The streets are extravagantly 
wide, the paved squares are pro- 
digious, the houses are huge and 
handsome, and compacted into 
uniform blocks that stretch away 
as straight as an arrow, into the 
distance. The side walks are 
about as wide as ordinary Euro- 
pean streets, and are covered 
over with a double arcade, sup- 
ported on great stone piers or 
columns. One walks from one 
end to the other of these spacious streets, under shelter all the time, and 
all his course is lined with the prettiest of shops and the most inviting 
dining-houses. 

There is a wide and lengthy court, glittering with the most wickedly 
enticing shops, which is roofed with glass, high aloft over head, and 
paved with soft- toned marbles laid in graceful figures ; and at night, 




HOW SHE FOOLED US. 



490 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

when this place is brilliant with gas and populous with a sauntering 
and chatting and laughing multitude of pleasure-seekers, it is a spectacle 
worth seeing. 

Everything is on a large scale ; the public buildings, for instance — 
and they are architecturally imposing too, as well as large. The big 
squares have big bronze monuments in them. At the hotel they 
gave us rooms that were alarming for size, and a parlour to match. 
It was well the weather required no fire in the parlour, for I think one- 
might as well have tried to warm a park. The place would have a. 
warm look though in any weather, for the window curtains were of red 
silk damask, and the Avails were covered with the same fire-hued 
goods — so, also, were the four sofas and the brigade of chairs. The 
furniture, the ornaments, the chandeliers, the carpets were all new and 
bright and costly. We did not need a parlour at all, but they said 
it belonged to the two bedrooms and we might use it if we chose. 
Since it Avas to cost nothing, we Avere not averse from using it, of course- 
Turin must surely read a good deal, for it has more book stores 
to the square rod than any other toAvn I knoAv of. And it has its oavu 
share of military folk. The Italian officers' uniforms are very much- 
the most beautiful I have ever seen; and as a general thing the 
men in them AA r ere as handsome as the clothes. They Avere not large 
men, but they had fine forms, fine features, rich olive complexions, and 
lustrous black eyes. 

For several Aveeks I had been culling all the information I could 
about Italy, from tourists. The tourists Avere all agreed upon one 
thing — one must expect to be cheated at every turn by the Italians. I 
took an evening Avalk in Turin, and presently came across a little 
Punch and Judy show in one of the great squares. Twelve or fifteen 
people constituted the audience. This miniature theatre Avas not much 
bigger than a man's coffin stood on end ; the upper part Avas open and 
displayed a tinselled parlour — a good-sized handkerchief Avould have 
ansAvered for a drop-curtain; the footlights consisted of a couple of 
candle-ends an inch long ; various manikins the size of dolls appeared 
on the stage and made long speeches at each other, gesticulating a good 
deal, and they generally had a fight before they got through. They 
Avere worked by strings from above, and the illusion Avas not perfect,. 



A Til AMP ABROAD. 491 

for one saw, not only the strings, but the brawny hand that manipulated 
tli em — and the actors and actresses all talked in the same voice too. 
The audience stood in front of the theatre, and seemed to enjoy the 
performance heartily. 

When the play was done, a youth in his shirt-sleeves started around 
with a small copper saucer to make a collection. I did not know 
how much to put in, but thought I would be guided by my pre- 
decessors. Unluckily I only had two of these, and they did not help me 
much because they did not put in anything. I had no Italian money, 
so I put in a small Swiss coin worth about ten cents. The youth finished 
his collection trip and emptied the result on the stage ; he had some 
very animated talk with the concealed manager, then he came working 
his way through the little crowd — seeking me, I thought. I had a mind 
to slip away, but concluded I wouldn't ; I would stand my ground, and 
confront the villainy, whatever it was. The youth stood before me and 
held up that Swiss coin, sure enough, and said something. I did 
not understand him, but I judged he was requiring Italian money 
of me. The crowd gathered close to listen. I was irritated, and said — 
in English of course — 

' I know it's Swiss, but you'll take that or none. I haven't any 
other.' 

He tried to put the coin in my hand, and spoke again. I drew 
my hand away, and said — 

* No, sir. I know all about you people. You can't play any of your 
fraudful tricks on me. If there is a discount on that coin, I am 
sorry, but I am not going to make it good. I noticed that some of the 
audience didn't pay you anything at all. You let them go without a 
word, but you come after me because you think I'm a stranger and 
will put up with an extortion rather than have a scene. But you are 
mistaken this time — you'll take that Swiss money or none.' 

The youth stood there with the coin in his fingers nonplussed and 
bewildered ; of course he had not understood a word. An English- 
speaking Italian spoke up now, and said — 

' You are misunderstanding the boy. He does not mean any 
harm. He did not suppose you gave him so much money purposely, 
so he hurried back to return you the coin lest you might get away 



492 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

before you discovered your mistake. Take it, and give him a penny — 
chat will make everything smooth again.' 

I probably blushed then, for there was occasion. Through the 
interpreter I begged the boy's pardon, but I nobly refused to take back 
the ten cents. I said I was accustomed to squandering large sums in 
that way — it was the kind of person I was. Then I retired to make 
a note to the effect that in Italy persons connected with the drama do 
not cheat. 




'you'll take that ok none.' 

The episode with the showman reminds me of a dark chapter in my 
history. I once robbed an aged and blind beggar-woman of four 
dollars — in a church. It happened in this way. "When I was out 
with the Innocents Abroad, the ship stopped in the Eussian port of 
Odessa, and I went ashore with others to view the town. I got 
separated from the rest, and wandered about, alone, until late in the 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 493 

afternoon, when I entered a Greek church to see what it was like. 
When I was ready to leave, I observed two wrinkled old women standing 
stiffly upright, against the inner wall, near the door, with their brown 
palms open to receive alms. I contributed to the nearer one, and 
passed out. I had gone fifty yards, perhaps, when it occurred to me 
that I must remain ashore all night, as I had heard that the ship's 
business would carry her away at four o'clock and keep her away until 
morning. It was a little after four now. I had come ashore with only 
two pieces of money, both about the same size, but differing largely 
in value — one was a French gold piece worth four dollars, the other 
a Turkish coin worth two cents and a half. With a sudden and 
horrified misgiving, I put my hand in my pocket, now, and sure enough 
I fetched out that Turkish penny ! 

Here was a situation. A hotel would require pay in advance — I 
must walk the streets all night, and perhaps be arrested as a suspicious 
character. There was but one way out of the difficulty — I flew back 
to the church, and softly entered. There stood the old women yet, 
and in the palm of the nearest one still lay my gold piece. I was 
grateful. I crept close, feeling unspeakably mean ; I got my Turkish 
penny ready, and was extending a trembling hand to make the nefarious 
exchange, when I heard a cough behind me. I jumped back as if I 
had been accused, and stood quaking while a worshipper entered and 
passed up the aisle. 

I was there a year trying to steal that money ; that is, it seemed 
a year, though of course it must have been much less. The worshippers 
went and came ; there were hardly ever three in the church at once, 
but there was always one or more. Every time I tried to commit my 
crime somebody came in or somebody started out, and I was prevented ; 
but at last my opportunity came, for one moment there was nobody 
in the church but the two beggar-women and me. I whipped the gold 
piece out of the poor old pauper's palm and dropped my Turkish 
penny in its place. Poor old thing, she murmured her thanks — they 
smote me to the heart. Then I sped away in a guilty hurry, and even 
when I was a mile from the church I was still glancing back, every 
moment, to see if I was being pursued. 

That experience has been of priceless value and benefit to me ; 



401 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



for I resolved then, that as long as I lived I would never again rob a 
blind beggar-woman in a church ; and I have always kept my word. 
The most permanent lessons in morals are those which come not of 
booky teaching, but of experience. 




FOBBING A. B EC! GAP, 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 405 



CHAPTER XLVI1L 

In Milan we spent most of our time in the vast and beautiful Arcade 
or Gallery, or whatever it is called. Blocks of tall new buildings of 
the most sumptuous sort, rich with decoration and graced with, statues, 
the streets between these blocks roofed over with glass at a great 
height, the pavements all of smooth and variegated marble, arranged 
in tasteful patterns — little tables all over these marble streets, people 
sitting at them, eating, drinking, or smoking — crowds of other people 
strolling by — such is the Arcade. I should like to live in it all the 
time. The windows of the sumptuous restaurants stand open, and one 
breakfasts there and enjoys the passing show. 

We wandered all over the town, enjoying whatever was going on in 
the streets. We took one omnibus ride, and as I did not speak Italian 
and could not ask the price, I held out some copper coins to the con- 
ductor, and he took two. Then he went and got his tariff- card and 
showed me that he had taken only the right sum. So I made a note — 
Italian omnibus conductors do not cheat. 

Near the cathedral I saw another instance of probity. An old man 
was peddling dolls and toy fans. Two small American children bought 
fans, and one gave the old man a franc and three copper coins, and both 
started away ; but they were called back, and the franc and one of the 
coppers were restored to them. Hence it is plain that in Italy parties 
connected with the drama, and with the omnibus and toy interests do 
not cheat. 

The stocks of goods in the shops were not extensive, generally. 
In the vestibule of what seemed to be a clothing store, we saw eight 
or ten wooden dummies grouped together, clothed in woollen business- 
suits, and each suit marked . with its price. One suit was marked 
forty-five francs — nine dollars. Harris stepped in, and said he wanted 



496 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 




DISHONEST ITALi. 



a suit like that. Nothing easier ; the old merchant dragged in the 
dummy, brushed him off with a broom, stripped him, and shipped the 

: clothes to the hotel. He 
said he did not keep two 
suits of the same kind in 
stock, but manufactured a 
second when it was 
needed to re-clothe the 
dummy. 

In another quarter we 
found six Italians engaged 
in a violent quarrel. They 
danced fiercely about, 
gesticulating with their 
heads, their arms, their 
legs, their whole bodies ; they would rush forward occasionally in a 
sudden access of passion and shake their fists in each other's very faces. 

We lost half an hour there, waiting 
to help cord up the dead, but they 
finally embraced each other affec- 
tionately, and the trouble was all 
over. The episode was interesting, 
but we could not have afforded all 
that time to it if we had known 
nothing was going to come of it 
but a reconciliation. Note made — 
in Italy, people who quarrel cheat 
the spectator. 

We had another disappointment 
afterwards. We approached a 
deeply interested crowd, and in the 
midst of it found a fellow wildly 
chattering and gesticulating over a 
box on the ground, which was ' 
covered with a piece of old blanket. 
Every little while he would bend 
down and take hold of the edjje 




STOCK IN TBADE. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



497 



of the blanket with the extreme tips of his fingers, as if to show- 
there was no deception — chattering away all the while — but always, 
just as I was expecting to see a wonderful feat of legerdemain, he 
would let go the blanket and rise to explain further. However, at 
last he uncovered the box and got out a spoon with a liquid in it, and 
held it fair and frankly around, for people to see that it was all right 
and he was taking no advantage — his chatter became more excited than 
ever. I supposed he was going to set fire to the liquid and swallow 
it, so I was greatly wrought up and interested. I got a cent ready 
in one hand and a florin in the other, intending to give him the former 
if he survived and the latter if 
he killed himself — for his loss 
would be my gain in a literary 
way, and I was willing to pay a 
fair price for the item — but this 
impostor ended his intensely mov- 
ing performance by simply adding 
some powder to the liquid and 
polishing the spoon ! Then he 
held it aloft, and he could not 
have shown a wilder exultation 
if he had achieved an immortal 
miracle. The crowd applauded 
in a gratified way, and it seemed 
to me that history speaks the truth 
when it says these children of the 
South are easily entertained. 

We spent an impressive hour 
in the noble cathedral, where long 
shafts of tinted light were cleaving 
through the solemn dimness from 
the lofty windows, and falling on 
a pillar here, a picture there, and 
a kneeling worshipper yonder. 
The organ was muttering, censers 

were swinging, candles were glinting on the distant altar, and the 
robed priests were filing silently past them. The scene was one to 

h. K 




498 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



sweep all frivolous thoughts away, and steep the soul in a holy calm. 
A trim young American lady paused a yard or two from me, fixed 
her eyes on the mellow sparks flecking the far-off altar, bent her head 
reverently a moment, then straightened up, kicked her train into the 
air with her heel, caught it deftly in her hand, and marched briskly out. 
We visited the picture galleries and the other regulation ' sights ' 
of Milan — not because I wanted to write about them again, but to 
see if I had learned anything in twelve years. I afterwards visited 
tl>e great galleries of Rome and Florence for the same purpose. I 
lound I had learned one thing. When I wrote about the Old Masters 




SPECIMENS FKOM OLD MASTEES. 

ore, I said the copies were better than the originals. That was a 
ptake of large dimensions. The Old Masters were still unpleasing 
/ me, but they were truly divine contrasted with the copies. The 
copy is to the original as the pallid, smart, inane new waxwork group 
is to the vigorous, earnest, dignified group of living men and women 
whom it professes to duplicate. There is a mellow richness, a subdued 
colour, in the old pictures, which is to the eye what muffled and 
mellowed sound is to the ear. That is the merit which is most loudly 
praised in the old picture, and is the one which the copy most con- 
spicuously lacks, and which the copyist must not hope to compass. It 
was generally conceded by the artists with whom I talked, that that 
subdued splendour, that mellow richness, is imparted to the picture by 
age. Then why should we worship the Old Master for it, who didn't 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 499 

impart it, instead of worshipping Old Time, who did ? Perhaps the 
picture was a clanging bell until Time muffled it and sweetened it. 

In conversation with an artist in Venice, I asked — 

1 What is it that people see in the Old Masters ? I have been in 
the Doges' Palace, and I saw several acres of very bad drawing, very- 
bad perspective, and very incorrect proportions. Paul Veronese's dogs 
do not resemble dogs ; all the horses look like bladders on legs ; one 
man had a right leg on the left side of his body ; in the large picture, 
where the Emperor (Barbarossa ?) is prostrate before the Pope, there 
are three men in the foreground who are over thirty feet high, if one 
may judge by the size of a kneeling little boy in the centre of the fore- 
ground ; and according to the same scale, the Pope is seven feet high, 
and the Doge is a shrivelled dwarf of four feet.' 

The artist said — 

' Yes, the Old Masters often drew badly ; they did not care much 
for truth and exactness in minor details. But, after all, in spite of 
bad drawing, bad perspective, bad proportions, and a choice of subjects 
which no longer appeal to people as strongly as they did three hundred 
years ago, there is a something about their pictures which is divine — a 
something which is above and beyond the art of any epoch since — a 
something which would be the despair of artists, but that they never 
-hope or expect to attain it, and therefore do not worry about it.' 

That is what he said — and he said what he believed; and not 
only believed, but felt. 

Reasoning — especially reasoning without technical knowledge — must 
be put aside in cases of this kind. It cannot assist the inquirer. It 
-will lead him, in the most logical progression, to what, in the eyes of 
artists, would be a most illogical conclusion. Thus, bad drawing, bad 
(proportion, bad perspective, indifference to truthful detail, colour which 
: gets its merit from time, and not from the artist — these things constitute 
the Old Master ; conclusion, the Old Master was a bad painter, the Old 
Master was not an Old Master at all, but an Old Apprentice. Your 
friend the artist will grant your premises, but deny your conclusion ; 
•he will maintain that notwithstanding this formidable list of confessed 
defects, there is still a something that is divine and unapproachable 
about the Old Master, and that there is no arguing the fact away 
<by any system of reasoning whatever. 

ke2 



500 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



I can believe that. There are women who have an indefinable- 
charm in their faces which makes them beautiful to their intimates ; 
but a cold stranger who tried to reason the matter out and find this 
beauty would fail. He would say of one of these women : ' This chin 
is too short, this nose is too long, this forehead is too high, this hair 
is too red, this complexion is too pallid, the perspective of the entire 
composition is incorrect ; conclusion, the woman is not beautiful/ 
But her nearest friend might say, and say truly, ' Your premises are- 
right, your logic is faultless, but your conclusion is wrong, nevertheless ^ 




AX OLD MASTER. 



she is an Old Master — she is beautiful, but only to such as know her • 
it is a beauty which cannot be formulated, but it is there just the 



I found more pleasure in contemplating the Old Masters this time 
than I did when I was in Europe in former years, but still it was a 
calm pleasure ; there was nothing overheated about it. When I was 
in Venice before, I think I found no picture which stirred me much ; 
but this time there were two which enticed me to the Doge's palace 
day after day, and kept me there hours at a time. One of these was 
Tintoretto's three-acre picture in the Great Council Chamber. When 



_l TRAMP ABROAD. 



501 



I saw it twelve years ago I was not strongly attracted to it — the guide 
told me it was an insurrection in heaven — but this was an error. 

The movement of this great work is very fine. There are ten 
thousand figures, and they are all doing something. There is a wonder- 
ful * go ' to the whole composition. Some of the figures are diving head- 
long downward, with clasped hands, others are swimming through the 
cloud-shoals — some on their faces, some on their backs — great proces- 
sions of bishops, martyrs, and angels are pouring swiftly centrewards 
from various outlying directions — every- 
where is enthusiastic joy, there is rushing 
movement everywhere. There are fifteen 
or twenty figures scattered here and there 
with books, but they cannot keep their 
attention on their reading — they offer the 
books to others, but no one wishes to read 
now. The Lion of St. Mark is there, 
with his book ; St. Mark is there, with 
his pen uplifted ; he and the Lion are 
looking each other earnestly in the face, 
disputing about the way to spell a word — 
the Lion looks up in rapt admiration 
while St. Mark spells. This is wonder- 
fully interpreted by the artist. It is the 
master-stroke of this incomparable paint- 
ing. . 

I visited the place daily and never 
grew tired of looking at that grand pic- 
ture. As I have intimated, the movement is almost unimaginably 
vigorous ; the figures are singing, hosannahing, and many are blowing 
trumpets. So vividly is noise suggested, that spectators who become 
■absorbed in the picture almost always fall to shouting comments in 
•each other's ears, making ear- trumpets of their curved hands, fearing 
they may not otherwise be heard. One often sees a tourist, with the 
eloquent tears pouring down his cheeks, funnel his hands at his wife's 
•ear, and hears him roar through them. 

1 to be there and at rest I ' 

None but the supremely great in art can produce effects like these 
with the silent brush. 




THE LION OF ST. MARK. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Twelve years ago I could not have appreciated this picture. One- 
year ago I could not have appreciated it. My study of art in Heidel- 
berg has been a noble education to me. All that I am to-day in art I 
owe to that. 

The other great work which 
fascinated me was Bassano's im- 
mortal Hair Trunk. This is in 
the Chamber of the Council of Ten. 
It is in one of the three forty- 
foot pictures which decorate the- 
walls of the room. The composi- 
tion of this picture is beyond praise. 
The Hair Trunk is not hurled at 
the stranger's head — so to cpeak — 
as the chief feature of an immortal 
work so often is. No ; it is care- 
fully guarded from prominence, it 
is subordinated, it is restrained, it 
is most deftly and cleverly held in 
reserve, it is most cautiously and 
ingeniously led up to, by the mas- 
ter and consequently when the 
spectator reaches it at last, he is 
taken unawares, he is unprepared,, 
and it bursts upon him with a 
stupefying surprise. 

One is lost in wonder at all the 
thought and care which this elaborate planning must have cost. A 
general glance at the picture could never suggest that there was a hair 
trunk in it; the Hair Trunk is not mentioned in the title even, 
which is, ' Pope Alexander III. and the Doge Ziani, the Conqueror 
of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.' You see the title is actually 
utilised to help divert attention from the trunk ; thus, as I say, nothing 
suggests the presence of the trunk by any hint, yet everything studiedly 
leads up to it, step by step. Let us examine into this, and observe 
the exquisite artful artlessness of the plan. 

At the extreme left end of the picture are a couple of women, one of 




OH, TO BE AT EEST. 



A TRAMP ABB AD 503 

them with a child looking over her shoulder at a wounded man sitting 
with bandaged head on the ground. These people seem needless; 
but no, they are there for a purpose. One cannot look at them without 
seeing the gorgeous procession of grantees, bishops, halberdiers, and 
banner-bearers which is passing along behind them. One cannot see 
the procession without feeling a curiosity to follow it and learn whither 
it is going. It leads him to the Pope in the centre of the picture, who 
is talking with the bonnetless Doge — talking tranquilly, too, although 
within twelve feet of them a man is beating a drum, and not far from 
the drummer two persons are blowing horns, and many horsemen are 
plunging and rioting about — indeed, twenty- two feet of this great work 
is all a deep and happy holiday serenity and Sunday-school procession, 
and then we come suddenly upon eleven and a half feet of turmoil, and 
racket, and insubordination. This latter state of things is not an 
accident, it has its purpose. But for it, one would linger upon the 
Pope and the Doge, thinking them to be the motive and supreme 
feature of the picture; whereas one is drawn along, almost uncon- 
sciously, to see what the trouble is about. Now at the very end of 
this riot, within four feet of the end of the picture, and full thirty-six 
feet from the beginning of it, the Hair Trunk bursts with an electrifying 
suddenness upon the spectator, in all its matchless perfection, and the 
great master's triumph is sweeping and complete. From that moment 
no other thing in those forty feet of canvas has any charm. One 
sees the Hair Trunk and the Hair Trunk only — and to see it is to 
worship it. Bassano even placed objects in the immediate vicinity of 
the supreme feature whose pretended purpose was to divert attention 
from it yet a little longer, and thus delay and augment the surprise ; 
for instance, to the right of it he has placed a stooping man, with a 
cap so red that it is sure to hold the eye for a moment — to the left 
of it, some six feet away, he has placed a red- coated man on an in- 
flated horse, and that coat plucks your eye to that locality the next 
moment. Then, between the trunk and the red horseman, he has in- 
truded a man, naked to his waist, who is carrying a fancy flour-sack 
on the middle of his back, instead of on his shoulder — this admirable 
feat interests you, of course— keeps you at bay a little longer, like a 
sock or a jacket thrown to the pursuing wolf — but at last, in spite.of all 
distractions and detentions, the eye of even the most dull and heedles3 



504 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



spectator is sure to fall upon the world's masterpiece, and in that 
moment he totters to his chair or leans upon his guide for support. 

Descriptions of such a work as this must necessarily be imperfect, 
yet they are of value. The top of the Trunk is arched ; the arch is a 
perfect half-circle, in the Roman style of architecture, for in the 
then rapid decadence of Greek art the rising influence of Rome was 
already beginning to be felt in the art of the Republic. The Trunk is 
bound or bordered with leather all around where the lid joins the main 
body. Many critics consider this leather too cold in tone ; but I con- 
sider this its highest merit, since it was evidently made so to emphasise 
by contrast the impassioned fervour of the hasp. The high lights in 
this part of the work are cleverly managed, the motif is admirably 
subordinated to the ground tints, and the technique is very fine. The 
brass nail-heads are in the purest style of the early Renaissance. The 
strokes here are very firm and bold — every nail-head is a portrait. 




THE WORLD'S MASTERPIECE. 

The handle on the end of the trunk has evidently been retouched 
— I think, with a piece of chalk — but one can still see the inspiration 
of the Old Master in the tranquil, almost too tranquil, hang of it. The 
hair of this trunk is real hair — so to speak — white in ratches, brown 
in patches. The details are finely worked out; the repose proper 
to hair in a recumbent and inactive attitude is charmingly expressed. 
There is a feeling about this part of the work which lifts it to the 
highest altitudes of art ; the sense of sordid realism vanishes away — 
one recognises that there is soul here. View this Trunk as you will, 
it is a gem, it is a marvel, it is a miracle. Some of the effects are very 
daring, approaching even to the boldest flights of the rococo, the 
sirocco, and the Byzantine schools — yet the master's hand never falters 
— it moves on, calm, majestic, confident— and with that art which 
conceals art, it finally casts over the tout ensemble, by mysterious 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



505 



methods of ita own, a subtle something which refines, subdues, ethereal- 
ises the arid components, and endues them with the deep charm and 
gracious witchery of poesy. 

Among the art- treasures of Europe there are pictures which approach 
the Hair Trunk — there are two which may be said to equal it, possibly 
— but there is none that surpasses it. So perfect is the Hair Trunk 
that it moves even persons who ordinarily have no feeling for art. 
When an Erie baggage-master saw it two years ago, he could hardly 
keep from checking it ; and once when a customs inspector was brought 
into its presence, he gazed upon it in silent rapture for some moments, 
then slowly and unconsciously placed one hand behind him with the 
palm uppermost, and got out his chalk with the other. These facta 
epeak for themselves. 




PRETTY CREATURE! 



506 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

One lingers about the Cathedral a good deal, in Venice. There is a 
strong fascination about it — partly because it is so old, and partly 
because it is so ugly. Too many of the world's famous buildings fail 
of one chief virtue — harmony; they are made up of a methodless 
mixture of the ugly and the beautiful ; this is bad ; it is confusing, 
it is un restful. One has a sense of uneasiness, of distress, without 
knowing why. But one is calm before St. Mark, one is calm within 
it, one would be calm on top of it, calm in the cellar ; for its details 
are masterfully ugly, no misplaced and impertinent beauties are 
intruded anywhere ; and the consequent result is a grand harmonious 
whole, of soothing, entrancing, tranquillising, soul-satisfying ugliness. 
One's admiration of a perfect thing always grows, never declines; 
and this is the surest evidence to him that it is perfect. St. Mark is 
perfect. To me it soon grew to be so nobly, so augustly ugly, that it 
was difficult to stay away from it, even for a little while. Every time 
its squat domes disappeared from my view, I had a despondent 
feeling; whenever they reappeared, I felt an honest rapture — I have 
not known any happier hours than those I daily spent in front of 
Florian's, looking across the Great Square at it. Propped on its long 
row of low thick-legged columns, its back knobbed with domes, it 
seemed like a vast warty bug taking a meditative walk. 

St. Mark is not the oldest building in the world, of course ; but 
it seems the oldest, and looks the oldest — especially inside. When 
the ancient mosaics in its walls become damaged they are repaired, but 
not altered ; the grotesque old pattern is preserved. Antiquity has a 
charm of its own, and to smarten it up would onlyjdamage it. One 
day I was sitting on a red marble bench in the vestibule, looking up at 
an ancient piece of apprentice-work in mosaic, illustrative of the 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 507 

command to ' multiply and replenish the earth.' The cathedral itself 
had seemed very old: but this picture was illustrating a period in 
history which made the building seem young by comparison. But I 
presently found an antique which was older than either the battered 
cathedral or the date assigned to that piece of history : it was a spiral- 
shaped fossil as large as the crown of a hat. It was embedded in 
the marble bench, and had been sat upon by tourists until it was 
worn smooth. Contrasted with the inconceivable antiquity of this 
modest fossil, those other things were flippantly modern, jejune, mere 
matters of day-bef ore- yesterday. The sense of the oldness of the 
cathedral vanished away under the influence of this truly venerable 
presence. 

St. Mark's is monumental. It is an imperishable remembrancer 
of the profound and simple piety of the Middle Ages. Whoever could 
ravish a column from a Pagan temple did it, and contributed his swag to 
this Christian one. So this fane is upheld by several hundred acquisi- 
tions procured in that peculiar way. In our day it would be immoral 
to go on the highway to get bricks for a church, but it was no sin in 
the old times. St. Mark's was itself the victim of a curious robbery 
once. The thing is set down in the History of Venice ; but it might 
be smuggled into the ' Arabian Nights,' and not seem out of place 
there 

Nearly four hundred and fifty years ago, a Candian named 
Stammato, in the suite of a Prince of the House of Este, was allowed 
to view the riches of St. Mark. His sinful eye was dazzled, and he 
hid himself behind an altar with an evil purpose in his heart ; but a 
priest discovered him, and turned him out. Afterwards he got in 
again, by false keys this time. He went there night after night, and 
worked hard and patiently all alone, overcoming difficulty after 
difficulty with his toil, and at last succeeded in removing a great 
block of the marble panelling which walled the lower part of the 
treasury. This block he fixed so that he could take it out and put it 
in at will. After that, for weeks he spent all his midnights in his 
magnificent mine, inspecting it in security, gloating over its marvels 
at his leisure, and always slipping back to his obscure lodgings before 
dawn with a duke's ransom under his cloak. He did not need to 
grab haphazard, and run; there was no hurry. He could make 



-os 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



He could consult his 




deliberate and well-considered selections, 
gestlietic tastes. One com- 
prehends how undisturbed he 
was, and how safe from any 
danger o£ interruption, when 
it is stated that he even 
carried off a unicorn's horn 
— a mere curiosity — which 
would not pass through the 
egress entire, but had to be 
sawn in two — a bit of work 
which cost him hours of 
tedious labour. He con- 
tinued to store up his 
treasures at home until his 
occupation lost the charm of 
novelty, and became mono- jsithetic tastes. 

tonous; then he ceased from it, contented. Well he might be; for 
his collection, raised to modern values, represented nearly 50,000,000 
dpls. ! 

He could have gone home much the richest citizen of his country, 
and it might have been years before the plunder was missed, but he 
was human : he could not enjoy his delight alone, he must have some- 
body to talk about it with. So he exacted a solemn oath from a 
€andian noble named Crioni, then led him to his lodgings, and nearly 
took his breath away with a sight of his glittering hoard. He detected 
a look in his friend's face which excited his suspicion, and was about 
to slip a stiletto into him, when Crioni saved himself by explaining that 
that look was only an expression of supreme and happy astonishment. 
Stammato made Crioni a present of one of the State's principal jewels 
- — a huge carbuncle, which afterwards figured in the ducal cap of state ; 
and the pair parted. Crioni went at once to the palace, denounced 
the criminal, and handed over the carbuncle as evidence. Stammato 
was arrested, tried, and condemned, with the old-time Venetian 
promptness. He was hanged between the two great columns in the Piazza 
— with a gilded rope, out of compliment to his love of gold, perhaps. 
He got no good of his booty at all ; it was all recovered. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



503- 



In Venice we had a luxury which very seldom fell to our lot on the 
Continent — a home dinner with a private family. It one could always 
stop with private families when travelling, Europe would have a 
charm which it now lacks. As it is, one must live in the hotels, of 
course, and that is a sorrowful business. A man accustomed to 
American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death 
suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually waste away and 
eventually die. He would have to do without his accustomed morning 
meal. That is too formidable a change altogether, he would necessa- 
rily suffer from it. He could get the shadow, the sham, the base 
counterfeit of that meal ; but that would do him no good, and money 
could not buy the reality. 

To particularise : the average American's simplest and commonest 
form of breakfast consists of coffee. and beefsteak; well, in Europe, 
coffee is an unknown beverage. 
You can get what the European 
hotel keeper thinks is coffee, but it 

resembles the real thing as hypocrisy 

resembles holiness. It is a feeble, 

characterless, uninspiring sort of 

stuff, and almost as undrinkable as 

if it had been made in an American 

hotel. The milk used for it is what 

the French call ' Christian ' milk — 

milk which has been baptised. 

After a few months' acquain- 
tance with European * coffee,' one's 

mind weakens, and his faith with it, 

and he begins to wonder if the rich 

beverage of home, with its clotted 

i j? n p -. A PRIVATE FAMILY BREAKFAST. 

layer of yellow cream on top of it, A 

is not a mere dream after all, and a thing which never existed. 

Next comes the European bread — fair enough, good enough, after 
a fashion, but cold ; cold and tough, and unsympathetic ; and never 
any change, never any variety — always the same tiresome thing. 

Next, the butter — the sham and tasteless butter ; no salt in it, and 
made of goodness knows what. 




610 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

Then, there is the beefsteak. They have it in Europe, but they 
don't know how to cook it. Neither will they cut it right. It comes 
on the table in a small round pewter platter. It lies in the centre of 
this platter, in a bordering bed of grease- soaked potatoes ; it is the 
size, shape, and thickness of a man's hand with the thumb and fingers 
cut off. It is a little overdone, is rather dry, it tastes pretty insipidly, 
it rouses no enthusiasm. 

Imagine a poor exile contemplating that inert thing ; and imagine 
an angel suddenly sweeping down out of a better land and setting 
before him a mighty porter-house steak an inch and a half thick, hot 
and spluttering from the griddle ; dusted with fragrant pepper ; 
enriched with little melting bits of butter of the most unimpeachable 
freshness and genuineness ; the precious juices of the meat trickling 
out and joining the gravy, archipelagoed with mushrooms; a town- 
ship or two of tender yellowish fat gracing an outlying district of this 
ample county of beefsteak ; the long white bone which divides the 
sirloin from the tender loin still in its place ; and imagine that the 
angel also adds a great cup of American home-made cofFee 5 with the 
cream a-froth on top, some real butter, firm and yellow and fresh, some 
smoking hot biscuits, a plate of hot buckwheat cakes, with transparent 
syrup — could words describe the gratitude of this exile ? 

The European dinner is better than the European breakfast, but 
it has its faults and inferiorities, it does not satisfy. He comes to 
the table eager and hungry — he swallows his soup — there is an 
undeiinable lack about it somewhere ; thinks the fish is going to be the 
thing he wants — eats it and isn't sure ; thinks the next dish is perhaps 
the one that will hit the hungry place — tries it, and is conscious that 
there was a something wanting about it also. And thus he goes on, 
from dish to dish, like a boy after a butterfly which just misses getting 
caught every time it alights, but somehow doesn't get caught after all ; 
and at the end the exile and the boy have fared about alike : the 
one is full, but grievously unsatisfied, the other has had plenty of 
exercise, plenty of interest, and a fine lot of hopes, but he hasn't got 
any butterfly. There is here and there an American who will say he 
can remember rising from an European table d'hote perfectly satisfied ; 
but we must not overlook the fact, that there is also here and there 
an American who will lie. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



;n 



The number of dishes is sufficient; but then it is such a mono- 
tonous variety of unstriking dishes. It is an inane dead level of 
* f air-to-middling.' There is nothing to accent it. Perhaps if the roast 
of mutton or of beef — a big generous one — were brought on the table 
and carved in full view of the client, that might give the right sense 
of earnestness and reality to the thing ; but they don't do that, they 
pass the sliced meat around on a dish, and so you are perfectly calm, 
it does not stir you in the least. Now a vast roast turkey, stretched 

his heels in the air, and the rich 



on the broad of his back, with 
juices oozing from his fat sides 
for they would not know 
how to cook him. 
They can't even cook 
a chicken respectably; 
and as for carving it, 
they do that with a 
hatchet. 

This is about the 
customary table d'hote 
bill in summer : — 

Soup (characterless). 

Fish — sole, salmon, 
or whiting — usually 
tolerably good. 

Roast — mutton or 
beef — tasteless — and 
some last year's po- 
tatoes. 

A pate, or some other 
made - dish — usually 
good, ' considering.' 

One vegetable — brought on in state, and all alone- 
lentils, or string beans, or indifferent asparagus. 

Roast chicken, as tasteless as paper. 

Lettuce-salad — tolerably good. 

Decayed strawberries or cherries. 



but I may as well as stop there, 




EUROPEAN CARVING. 



-usually insipid 



5.1 2 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Sometimes the apricots and figs are fresh, but this is no advantage, 
as these fruits are of no account anyway. 

The grapes are generally good, and sometimes there is a tolerably 
good peach, by mistake. 

The variations of the above bill are trifling. After a fortnight 
one discovers that the variations are only apparent, not real; in 
the third week you get what you had the first, and in the fourth week 
you get what you had the second. Three or four months of this 
weary sameness will kill the robustest appetite. 

It has now been many months, at the present writing, since I have 
had a nourishing meal, but I shall soon have one — a modest, private 
affair, all to myself. I have selected a few dishes, and made out a 
little bill of fare, which will go home in the steamer that precedes me, 
and be hot when I arrive — as follows : — 



Badishes. Baked apples, with cream. 

Fried oysters; stewed oysters. Frogs. 

American coffee, with real cream. 

American butter. 

Fried chicken, Southern style. 

Porter-house steak. 

Saratoga potatoes. 

Broiled chicken, American style. 

Hot biscuits, Southern style. 

Hot wheat-bread, Southern style. 

Hot buckwheat cakes. 

American toast. Clear maple syrup. 

Virginia bacon, broiled. 

Blue points, on the half shell. 

Cherry-stone clams. 

San Francisco mussels, steamed. 

Oyster soup. Clam soup. 

Philadelphia terrapin soup. 

Oysters roasted in shell — Northern 

style. 
Soft-shelled crabs. Connecticut 
Baltimore perch. [shad. 

Brook trout, from Sierra Nevadas. 
Lake trout, from Tahoe. 
Sheep-head and croakers, from New 

Orleans. 
Black bass, from the Mississippi. 



American roast beef. 

Eoast turkey, Thanksgiving style. 

Cranberry sauce. Celery. 

Boast wild turkey. "Woodcock. 

Canvas-back-duck, from Baltimore. 

Prairie hens, from Illinois. 

Missouri partridges, broiled. 

Possum. Coon. 

Boston bacon and beans. 

Bacon and greens, Southern style. 

Hominy. Boiled onions. Turnips. 

Pumpkin. Squash. Asparagus. 

Butter beans. Sweet potatoes. 

Lettuce. Succotash. String beans 

Mashed potatoes. Catsup. 

Boiled potatoes, in the skins. 

New potatoes, minus their skins. 

Early rose potatoes roasted in the 
ashes, Southern style, served hot. 

Sliced tomatoes, with sugar or vine- 
gar. Stewed tomatoes. 

Green corn, cut from the ear, and 
served with butter and pepper. 

Green corn, on the ear. 

Hot corn-pone, with chitlings, 
Southern style : 

Hot hoe-cake, Southern style. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 513 



Hot egg-bread, Southern style. 
Hot light-bread, Southern style. 
Buttermilk. Iced sweet milk. 
Apple dumplings, with real cream. 
Apple pi 6. Apple fritters. 



Apple puffs, Southern style. 
Peach cobbler, Southern style. 
Peach pie. American mince pie. 
Pumpkin pie. Squash pie. 
All sorts of American pastry. 



Fresh American fruits of all sorts, including strawberries, which are not to 
be doled out as if they were jewellery, but in a more liberal way. 

Ice-water — not prepared in the ineffectual goblet, but in the sincere and 
capable refrigerator. 

Americans intending to spend a year or so in European hotels 
will do well to copy this bill and carry it along. They will find it 
an excellent thing to get up an appetite with, in the dispiriting presence 
of the squalid table d'hote. 

Foreigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we 
can enjoy theirs. It is not strange ; for tastes are made, not born. I 
might glorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but after all, the 
Scotchman would shake his head and say, ' Where's your haggis ? ' and 
the Fijian would sigh and say, 'Where's your missionary V 

I have a neat talent in matters pertaining to nourishment. 
This has met with professional recognition. I have often furnished 
recipes for cook-books. Here are some designs for pies and things 
which I recently prepared for a friend's projected cook-book, but as 
I forgot to furnish diagrams and perspectives, they had to be left out, 
of course : — 

Recipe for an Ash-cake. 

Take a lot of water and add to it a lot of coarse Indian meal and 
about a quarter of a lot of salt. Mix well together, knead into the 
form of a ' pone,' and let the pone stand awhile — not on its edge, but 
the other way. Rake away a place among the embers, lay it there, 
and cover it an inch deep with hot ashes. When it is done, remove 
it ; blow off all the ashes but one layer ; butter that one and eat. 

N.B. No household should ever be without this talisman. It 
has been noticed that tramps never return for another ash-cake. 

Recipe for Neiv England Pie. 
To make this excellent breakfast dish, proceed as follows : — Take 
a sufficiency of water and a sufficiency of flour and construct a bullet- 
proof dough. Work this into the form of a disk, with the edges turned 

L L 



3U A TRAMP ABROAD. 

up some three-fourths of an inch. Toughen and kiln-dry it a couple 
of days in a mild but unvarying temperature. Construct a cover for 
this redoubt in the same way and of the same material. Fill with 
stewed dried apples ; aggravate with cloves, lemon peel, and slabs of 
citron ; add two portions of New Orleans sugar, then solder on the 
lid and set in a safe place till it petrifies. Serve cold at breakfast 
and invite your enemy. 

Recipe for German Coffee. 

Take a barrel of water and bring it to a boil ; rub a chicory berry 
against a coffee berry, then convey the former into the water. 
Continue the boiling and evaporation until the intensity of the flavour 
and aroma of the coffee and chicory has been diminished to a 
proper degree; then set aside to cool. Now unharness the remains 
of a once cow from the plough, insert them in a hydraulic press, and 
when you shall have acquired a teaspoonful of that pale blue juice 
which a German superstition regards as milk, modify the malignity of 
its strength in a bucket of tepid water and ring up the breakfast. Mix 
the beverage in a cold cup, partake with moderation, and keep a wet 
rag around your head to guard against over- excitement. 

To Carve Fowls in the German Fashion. 
Use a club, and avoid the joints. 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 515 



CHAPTER L. 

I wonder why some things are? For instance, Art is allowed as 
much indecent licence to-day as in earlier times ; but the privileges 
of Literature in this respect have been sharply curtailed within the past 
eighty or ninety years. Fielding and Smollett could portray the beast- 
liness of their day in the beastliest language ; we have plenty of 
foul subjects to deal with in our day, but we are not allowed to 
approach them very near, even with nice and guarded forms of speech. 
But not so with Art. The brush may still deal freely with any 
subject, however revolting or indelicate. It makes a body ooze sarcasm 
at every pore, to go about Rome and Florence and see what this 
last generation has been doing with the statues. These works, 
which had stood in innocent nakedness for ages, are all fig-leaved now. 
Yes, every one of them. Nobody noticed their nakedness before, 
perhaps; nobody can help noticing it now, the fig-leaf makes it so 
conspicuous. But the comical thing about it all is, that the fig-leaf 
is confined to cold and pallid marble, which would be still cold and 
unsuggestive without this sham and ostentatious symbol of modesty, 
whereas warm-blooded paintings which do really need it have in no 
case been furnished with it. 

At the door of the Ufizzi, in Florence, one is confronted by statues 
of a man and a woman, noseless, battered, black with accumulated 
grime — they hardly suggest human beings — yet these ridiculous 
creatures have been thoughtfully and conscientiously fig-leaved by 
this fastidious generation. You enter, and proceed to that most-visited 
little gallery that exists in the world — the Tribune — and there, against 
the wall, without obstructing rag or leaf, you may look your fill upon 
the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses — Titian's 

ll2 



516 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

Venus. It isn't that she is naked and stretched out on a bed ; no, it 
is the attitude of one o£ her arms and hand. If I ventured to describe 
that attitude, there would be a fine howl ; but there the Yenus lies, 
for anybody to gloat over that wants to ; and there she has a right 
to lie, for she is a work of art, and Art has its privileges. I saw young 
girls stealing furtive glances at her ; I saw young men gaze long and 
absorbedly at her ; I saw aged, infirm men hang upon her charms with 
a pathetic interest. How I should like to describe her — just to see 
what a holy indignation I could stir up in the world — just to hear the 
unreflecting average man deliver himself about my grossness and 
coarseness, and all that. The world says that no worded description 
of a moving spectacle is a hundredth part as moving as the same 
spectacle seen with one's own eyes ; yet the world is willing to let its 
son and its daughter and itself look at Titian's beast, but won't stand 
a description of it in words. "Which shows that the world is not as 
consistent as it might be. 

There are pictures of nude women which suggest no impure 
thought ; I am well aware of that. I am not railing at such. What 
I am trying to emphasise is the fact that Titian's Yenus is very far 
from being one of that sort. Without any question it was painted for 
a bagnio, and it was probably refused because it was a trifle too strong. 
In truth it is too strong for any place but a public Art Gallery. Titian 
has two Yenuses in the Tribune ; persons who have seen them will 
easily remember which one I am referring to. 

In every gallery in Europe there are hideous pictures of blood,, 
carnage, oozing brains, putrefaction — pictures portraying intolerable 
suffering — pictures alive with every conceivable horror, wrought out 
in dreadful detail — and similar pictures are being put on the canvas 
every day and publicly exhibited — without a growl from anybody, for 
they are innocent, they are inoffensive, being works of art. But sup- 
pose a literary artist ventured to go into a painstaking and elaborate 
description of one of these grisly things, the critics would skin him 
alive. Well, let it go, it cannot be helped; Art retains her privi- 
leges, Literature has lost hers. Somebody else may cipher out the whys 
and the wherefors and the consistencies of it — I haven't got time. 

Titian's Yenus defiles and disgraces the Tribune, there is no soften- 
ing that fact ; but his ' Moses ' glorifies it. The simple truthfulness 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 517 

of this noble work wins the heart and the applause of every visitor, 
he he learned or ignorant. After wearying oneself with the acres of 
stuffy, sappy, expressionless babies that populate the canvases of the 
Old Masters in Italy, it is refreshing to stand before this peerless child 
and feel that thrill which tells you you are at last in the presence of the 
real thing. This is a human child, this is genuine. You have seen 
him a thousand times — you have seen him just as he is here — and 
you confess, without reserve, that Titian was a Master. The doll- 
faces of other painted babes may mean one thing, they may mean another, 
but with the ' Moses ' the case is different. The most famous of all the 
art critics has said, ' There is no room for doubt here — plainly this 
child is in trouble.' 

I consider that the l Moses ' has no equal among the works of the 
Old Masters, except it be the divine Hair Trunk of Bassano. I feel 
sure that if all the other Old Masters were lost, and only these two 
preserved, the world would be the gainer by it. 

My sole purpose in going to Florence was to see this immortal 
1 Moses,' and by good fortune I was just in time, for they were already 
preparing to remove it to a more private and better-protected place, 
because a fashion of robbing the great galleries was prevailing in 
Europe at the time. 

I got a capable artist to copy the picture ; Pannemaker, the engraver 
of Dore's books, engraved it for me, and I have the pleasure of laying 
it before the reader as the frontispiece to this volume. 

We took a turn to Rome and some other Italian cities ; then to 
Munich, and thence to Paris, partly for exercise, but mainly because 
these things were in our projected programme, and it was only right 
that we should be faithful to it. 

From Paris I branched out and walked through Holland and 
Belgium, procuring an occasional lift by rail or canal when tired, and I 
had a tolerably good time of it ' by and large.' I worked Spain and 
other regions through agents, to save time and shoe leather. 

We crossed to England, and then made the homeward passage in the 
Ounarder ' Gallia,' a very fine ship. I was glad to get home — im- 
measurably glad ; so glad, in fact, that it did not seem possible that 
anything could ever get me out of the country again. I had not 
enjoyed a pleasure abroad which seemed to me to compare with the 



618 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

pleasure I felt in seeing New York harbour again. Europe has many- 
advantages which we have not, but they do not compensate for a 
good many still more valuable ones which exist nowhere but in our 
own country. Then we are such a homeless lot when we are over 
there ! So are Europeans themselves, for that matter. They live in 
dark and chilly vast tombs, costly enough, maybe, but without con- 
veniences. To be condemned to live as the average European family 
lives would make life a pretty heavy burden to the average American 
family. 

On the whole, I think that short visits to Europe are better for us 
than long ones. The former preserve us from becoming Europeanised ; 
they keep our pride of country intact, and at the same time they 
intensify our affection for our country and our people ; whereas long 
visits have the effect of dulling those feelings, at least in the majority 
of cases. I think that one who mixes much with Americans long 
resident abroad must arrive at this conclusion. 



APPENDIX. 



Nothing gives such weight and 

dignity to a book as an Appendix. 

Herodotus. 



APPENDIX A. 



THE PORTIER. 

Omar Khayam, tlie poet-prophet of Persia, writing more than eight 
hundred years ago, has said : — 

In the four parts of the earth are many that are able to write learned 
books, many that are able to lead armies, and many also that are able to 
govern kingdoms and empires ; but few there be that can keep hotel. 

A word about the European hotel portier. He is a most admirable inven- 
tion, a most valuable convenience. He always wears a conspicuous uniform ; 
he can always be found when he is wanted, for he sticks closely to his post 
at the front door ; he is as polite as a duke ; he speaks from four to ten 
languages ; he is your surest help and refuge in time of trouble or perplexity. 
He is not the clerk, he is not the landlord ; he ranks above the clerk, and 
represents the landlord, who is seldom seen. Instead of going to the clerk 
for information, as we do at home, you go to the portier. It is the pride 
of our average hotel clerk to know nothing whatever ; it is the pride of the 
portier to know everything. You ask the portier at what hours the trains 
leave — he tells you instantly; or you ask him who is the best physician 
in town ; or what is the hack tariff ; or how many children the mayor 
has ; or what days the galleries are open, and whether a permit is required, 
and where you are to get it, and what you must pay for it ; or when the 
theatres open and close, what the plays are to be, and the price of seats ; or 
what is the newest thing in hats ; or how the bills of mortality average ; 
or ' who struck Billy Patterson.'* It does not matter what you ask him : 
in nine cases out of ten he knows, and in the tenth case he will find out 
for you before you can turn around three times. There is nothing he will 
not put his hand to. Suppose you tell him you wish to go from Hamburg 
to Pekin by the way of Jericho, and are ignorant of routes and prices 
— the next morning he will hand you a piece of paper with the whole thing 
worked out on it to the last detail. Before you have been long on 
European soil, you find yourself still saying you are relying on Providence, 
but when you come to look closer you will see that in reality you are rely- 



522 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

ing on the portier. He discovers what is puzzling you, or what is troubling 
you, or what your need is, before you can get the half of it out, and he 
promptly says, ' Leave that to me.' Consequently you easily drift into the 
habit of leaving everything to him. There is a certain embarrassment about 
applying to the average American hotel clerk, a certain hesitancy, a sense of 
insecurity against rebuff; but you feel no embarrassment in your inter- 
course with the portier ; he receives your propositions with an enthusiasm 
which cheers, and plunges into their accomplishment with an alacrity which 
almost inebriates. The more requirements you can pile upon him, the 
better he likes it. Oi course the result is that you cease from doing any- 
thing for yourself. He calls a hack when you want one ; puts you into 
it ; tells the driver whither to take you ; receives you like a long-lost child 
when you return ; sends you about your business, does all the quarrelling with 
the hackman himself, and pays him his money out of his own pocket. He 
sends for your theatre tickets, and pays for them ; he sends for any possible 
article you can require, be it a doctor, an elephant, or a postage-stamp ; 
and when you leave, at last, you will find a subordinate seated with the 
cab-driver, who will put you in your railway compartment, buy your tickets, 
have your baggage weighed, bring you the printed tags, and tell you every- 
thing is in your bill and paid for. At home you get such elaborate, excel- 
lent, and willing service as this only in the best hotels of our large cities ; 
but in Europe you get it in the mere back country towns just as well. 

What is the secret of the portier's devotion ? It is very simple : he gets 
fees, and no salary. His fee is pretty closely regulated, too. If you stay a 
week in the house, you give him five marks — a dollar and a quarter, or about 
eighteen cents a day. If you stay a month, you reduce this average some- 
what. If you stay two or three months or longer, you cut it down half, or 
even more than half. If you stay only one day, you give the portier a 
mark. 

The head waiter's fee is a shade less than the portier's ; the Boots, who 
not only blacks your boots and brushes your clothes, but is usually the 
porter and handles your baggage, gets a somewhat smaller fee than the head 
waiter ; the chambermaid's fee ranks below that of the Boots. You fee only 
these four, and no one else. A German gentleman told me that when he 
remained a week in an hotel, he gave the portier five marks, the head waiter 
four, the Boots three, and the chambermaid two; and if he stayed three 
months he divided ninety marks among them, in about the above propor- 
tions. Ninety marks make #22.50. 

None of these fees are ever paid until you leave the hotel, though it be a 
year — except one of these four servants should go away in the meantime ; in 
that case he will be sure to come and bid you good-bye and give you the 
opportunity to pay him what is fairly coming to him. It is considered very 
bad policy to fee a servant while you are still to remain longer in the hotel, 



APPENDIX A. 



523 



because if you gave him too little he might neglect you afterwards, and 
if you gave him too much he might neglect somebody else to attend to you. 
It is considered best to keep his expectations ' on a string ' until your stay is 
concluded. 

I do not know whether hotel servants in New York get any wages or not,, 
but I do know that in some of the hotels there the feeing system in 
vogue is a heavy burden. The waiter expects a quarter at breakfast — and 
gets it. You have a different waiter at luncheon, and so he gets a quarter. 
Your waiter at dinner is another stranger — consequently he gets a quarter. 
The boy who carries your satchel to your room and lights your gas, fumbles 
around and hangs around significantly, and you fee him to get rid of hini.. 




A TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR FIGHT. 



Now you may ring for ice- water ; and tea minutes later for a lemonade ; andi 
ten minutes afterwards, for a cigar ; and by-and-by for a newspaper — and 
what is the result ? Why, a new boy has appeared every time, and fooled 
and fumbled around until you have paid him something. Suppose you boldly 
put your foot down, and say it is the hotel's business to pay its servants ? — 
and suppose you stand your ground and stop feeing ? You will have to ring 
your bell ten or fifteen times before you get a servant there. ; and when he 
goes off to fill your order you will grow old and infirm before you see him 
again. You may struggle nobly for twenty-four hours, may be, if you are 
an adamantine sort of person, but in the meantime you will have been so 
wretchedly served, and so insolently, that you will haul down your colours, 
and go to impoverishing yourself with fees. 



524 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

It seems to ine that it would he a happy idea to import the European 
feeing system into America. I believe it would result in getting even the 
bells of the Philadelphia hotels answered, and cheerful service rendered. 

The greatest American hotels keep a number of clerks and a cashier, 
and pay them salaries which mount up to a considerable total in the course 
of a year. The great Continental hotels keep a cashier on a trifling salary, 
^and a portier who pays the hotel a salary. By the latter system both the 
hotel and the public save money and are better served than by our sj^stem. 
■One of our consuls told me that the portier of a great Berlin hotel paid 
$5,000 a year for his position, and yet cleared $6,000 for himself. The 
position of portier in the chief hotels of Saratoga, Long Branch, New York, 
and similar centres of resort would be one which the holder could afford 
to pay even more than $5,000 for, perhaps. 

When we borrowed the feeing fashion from Europe a dozen years ago, 
the salary system ought to have been discontinued, of course. We might 
make this correction now, I should think. And we might add the portier 
too. Since I first began to study the portier, I have had opportunities to 
observe him in the chief cities of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy; and 
the more I have seen of him, the more I have wished that he might be 
adopted in America, and become there, as he is in Europe, the stranger's 
guardian angel. 

Yes, what was true eight hundred years ago is just as true to-day: 
' Few there be that can keep hotel.' Perhaps it is because the landlords 
and their subordinates have in too many cases taken up their trade without 
first learning it. In Europe the trade of hotel-keeper is taught. The 
apprentice begins at the bottom of the ladder and masters the several 
grades one after the other. Just as in our country printing-offices the 
apprentice first learns how to sweep out and bring water ; then learns to 
'roll;' then to sort 'pi;' then to set type; and finally rounds and com- 
pletes his education with job-work and press-work : so the landlord- 
apprentice serves as call-boy; then as under- waiter ; then as a parlour- 
waiter ; then as head-waiter, in which position he often has to make out 
all the bills ; then as clerk or cashier; then as portier. His trade is learned 
now, and by-and-by he will assume the style and dignity of landlord, and 
be found conducting an hotel of his own. 

Now in Europe, the same as in America, when a man has kept an hotel 
:SO thoroughly well during a number of years as to give it a great repu- 
tation, he has his reward. He can live prosperously on that reputation. He 
can let his hotel run down to the last degree of shabbiness and yet 
have it full of people all the time. For instance, there is the Hotel de Yille 
in Milan. It swarms with mice and fleas, and if the rest of the world were 
destroyed it could furnish dirt enough to start another one with. The food 



APPENDIX A. 525> 

would create an insurrection in a poorhouse ; and yet if you go outside to get 
your meals that hotel makes up its loss by overcharging you on all sorts of 
trifles — and without making any denials or excuses about it either. But the 
Hotel de Yille's old excellent reputation still keeps its dreary rooms 
crowded with travellers who would be elsewhere if they had only had som& 
wise friend to warn them. 



APPENDIX B. 

HEIDELBERG CASTLE. 

Heldelbekg Castle must have been very beautiful before the French 
battered and bruised and scorched it two hundred years ago. The stone 
is brown, with a pinkish tint, and does not seem to stain easily. The dainty 
and elaborate ornamentation upon its two chief fronts is as delicately carved 
as if it had been intended for the interior of a drawing-room rather than 
for the outside of a house. Many fruit and flower-clusters, human heads, 
and grim projecting lion's heads are still as perfect in every detail as if they 
were new. But the statues which are ranked between the windows have 
suffered. These are life-size statues of old-time emperors, electors, and 
similar grandees, clad in mail and bearing ponderous swords. Some have 
lost an arm, some a head, and one poor fellow is chopped off at the middle. 
There is a saying that if a stranger will pass over the drawbridge and walk 
across the court to the Castle front without saying anything, he can make 
a wish and it will be fulfilled. But they say that the truth of this thing 
has never had a chance to be proved, for the reason that before any stranger 
can walk from the drawbridge to the appointed place, the beauty of the 
palace front will extort an exclamation of delight from him. 

A ruin must be rightly situated, to be effective. This one could not 
have been better placed. It stands upon a commanding elevation, it is buried 
in green woods, there is no level ground about it, but on the contrary there ; 
are wooded terraces upon terraces, and one looks down through shining > 
leaves into profound chasms and abysses where twilight reigns and the sun 
cannot intrude. Nature knows how to garnish a ruin to get the best effect. 
One of these old towers is split down the middle, and one half has tumbled 
aside. It tumbled in such a way as to establish itself in a picturesque 
attitude. Then all it lacked was a fitting drapery, and Nature has furnished 
that; she has robed the rugged mass in flowers and verdure, and made 
it a charm . to t the eye. The standing half exposes its arched and ca- 
vernous ruOi- * "to you, like open, toothless mouths ; there, too, the vines 



APPENDIX B. 527 

*md flowers have done their work of grace. The rear portion of the tower 
has not been neglected, either, but is clothed with a clinging garment of 
polished ivy which hides the wounds and stains of time. Even the top is 
not left bare, but is crowned with a flourishing group of trees and shrubs. 
Misfortune has done for this old tower what it has done for the human 
character sometimes — improved it. 

A gentleman remarked, one day, that it might have been fine to live in 
the Castle in the day of its prime, but that we had one advantage which its 
vanished inhabitants lacked — the advantage of having a charming ruin 
to visit and muse over. But that was a hasty idea. Those people had the 
advantage of us. They had the fine Castle to live in, and they could cross 
the Rhine valley and muse over the stately ruin of Trifels besides. The 
Trifels people, in their day, five hundred years ago, could go and muse over 
majestic ruins which have vanished, now, to the last stone. There have 
always been ruins, no doubt ; and there have always been pensive people 
to sigh over them, and asses to scratch upon them their names and the 
important date of their visit. Within a hundred years after Adam left Eden, 
the guide probably gave the usual general flourish with his hand and said : 
* Place where the animals were named, ladies and gentlemen ; place where 
the tree of the forbidden fruit stood ; exact spot where Adam and Eve first 
met ; and here, ladies and gentlemen, adorned and hallowed by the names 
and addresses of three generations of tourists, we have the crumbling remains 
of Cain's altar — fine old ruin ! ' Then, no doubt, he taxed them a shekel 
apiece and let them go. 

An illumination of Heidelberg Castle is one of the sights of Europe. 
The Castle's picturesque shape; its commanding situation, midway up 
the steep and wooded mountain side ; its vast size — these features combine 
to make an illumination a most effective spectacle. It is necessarily an 
expensive show, and consequently rather infrequent. Therefore, whenever 
one of these exhibitions is to take place, the news goes about in the papers, 
and Heidelberg is sure to be full of people on that night. I and my agent 
had one of these opportunities, and improved it. 

About half-past seven on the appointed evening we crossed the lower 
bridge, with some American students, in a pouring rain, and started up 
the road which borders the Neunheim side of the river. This roadway was 
densely packed with carriages and foot passengers ; the former of all ages, 
and the latter of all ages and both sexes. This black and solid mass was 
struggling painfully onward, through the slop, the darkness, and the deluge. 
We waded along for three-quarters of a mile, and finally took up a position 
in an unsheltered beer-garden directly opposite the Castle. We could 
not see the Castle — or anything else, for that matter — but we could dimly 
discern the outlines of the mountain over the way, throir ^pervading 

blackness, and knew whereabouts the Castle was located /e stood on 



528 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

one of the hundred benches in the garden, under our umbrellas ; the other 
ninety-nine were occupied by standing men and women, and they also had 
umbrellas. All the region round about, and up and down the river-road,, 
was a dense wilderness of humanity hidden under an unbroken pavement 
of carriage tops and umbrellas. Thus we stood during two drenching hours 
No rain fell on my head, but the converging whalebone points of a dozen 
neighbouring umbrellas poured little cooling streams of water down my neck, 
and sometimes into my ears, and thus kept me from getting hot and. 
impatient. I had the rheumatism, too, and had heard that this was good 
for it. Afterwards, however, I was led to believe that the water treatment 
is not good for rheumatism. There were even little girls in that dreadful, 
place. A man held one in his arms, just in front of me, for as much as an 
hour, with umbrella-drippings soaking into her clothing all the time. 

In the circumstances, two hours was a good while for us to have to- 
wait, but when the illumination did at last come, we felt repaid. It 
came unexpectedly, of course— things always do that have been long looked, 
and longed for. With a perfectly breath-taking suddenness several vast 
sheaves of vari-coloured rockets were vomited skyward out of the black 
throats of the Castle towers, accompanied by a thundering crash of sound, 
and instantly every detail of the prodigious ruin stood revealed against the 
mountain side and glowing with an almost intolerable splendour of fire and. 
colour. For some little time the whole building was a blinding crimson 
mass, the towers continued to spout thick columns of rockets aloft, and. 
overhead the sky was radiant with arrowy bolts which clove their way 
to the zenith, paused, curved gracefully downward, then burst into brilliant 
fountain sprays of richly coloured sparks. The red fires died slowly down- 
within the Oastle, and presently the shell grew nearly black outside ; the 
angry glare that shone out through the broken arches and innumerable 
sashless windows now reproduced the aspect which the Castle must have 
borne in the old time when the French spoilers saw the monster bonfire 
which they had made there fading and smouldering towards extinction. 

While we still gazed and enjoyed, the ruin was suddenly enveloped in 
rolling and tumbling volumes of vaporous green fire ; then in dazzling 
purple ones ; then a mixture of many colours followed, and drowned 
the great fabric in its blended splendours. Meantime the nearest bridge 
had been illuminated, and from several rafts anchored in the river meteor 
showers of rockets, Eoman candles, bombs, serpents, and Catharine wheels 
were being discharged in wasteful profusion into the sky — a marvellous sight 
indeed to a person as little used to such spectacles as I was. For a while 
the whole region about us seemed as bright as day, and yet the rain was- 
falling in torrents all the time. The evening's entertainment presently 
closed, and we joined the innumerable caravan of half-drowned spectators, 
and waded home again. 



APPENDIX B. 529 

The Castle grounds are very ample and very beautiful ; and as they joined 
the hotel grounds, with no fences to climb, but only some nobly shaded 
stone stairways to descend, we spent a part of nearly every day in idling' 
through their smooth walks and leafy groves. The:e was an attractive 
spot among the trees where were a great many wooden tab!es and 
benches ; and there one could sit in the shade and pretend to sip at hi9 
foamy beaker of beer while he inspected the crowd. I say pretend, 
because I only pretended to sip, without really sipping. That is the polite 
way ; but when you are ready to go, you empty the beaker at a draught. 
There was a brass band, and it furnished excellent music every afternoon. 
Sometimes so many people came that every seat was occupied, every table 
filled. And never a rough in the assemblage — all nicely dressed fathers and 
mothers, young gentlemen and ladies and children ; and plenty of university 
students and glittering officers ; with here and there a grey professor, or 
a peaceful old lady with her knitting ; and always a sprinkling of gawky 
foreigners. Everybody had his glass of beer before him, or his cup of 
coffee, or his bottle of wine, or his hot cutlet and potatoes ; young ladies 
chatted, or fanned themselves, or wrought at their crocheting or embroider- 
ing ; the students fed sugar to their dogs, or discussed duels, or illustrated 
new fencing-tricks with their little canes ; and everywhere was comfort and 
enjoyment, and everywhere peace and goodwill to men. The trees were 
jubilant with birds, and the paths with rollicking children. One could 
have a seat in that place and plenty of music, any afternoon, for about 
eight cents or a family ticket for the season for two dollars. 

For a change, when you wanted one, you could stroll to the Castle, and 
burrow among its dungeons, or climb about its ruined towers, or visit its 
interior shows — the great Heidelberg Tun, for instance. Everybody has 
heard of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people have seen it, no doubt. 
It is a wine-cask as big as a cottage, and some traditions say it holds 
eighteen hundred thousand bottles, and other traditions say it holds 
eighteen hundred million barrels. I think it likely that one of these state- 
ments is a mistake, and the other one a lie. However, the mere matter of 
capacity is a thing of no sort of consequence, since the cask is empty, and 
indeed has always been empty, history says. An empty cask the size of a 
cathedral could excite but little emotion in me. I do not see any wisdom in 
building a monster cask to hoard up emptiness in, when you can get a 
better quality, outside, any day, free of expense. What could this cask have 
been built for ? The more one studies over that, the more uncertain and 
unhappy he becomes. Some historians say that thirty couples, some say- 
thirty thousand couples, can dance on the head, of this cask at the same time. 
Even this does not seem to me to account for the building of it. It does 
not even throw light on it. A profound and scholarly Englishman — a 
specialist — who had made the great Heidelberg Tim his sole study for 

M M 



530 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



fifteen years, told me he had at last satisfied himself that the ancients "built 
it to make German cream in. He said that the average German cow yielded 
from one to two and a half teaspoonfuls of milk, when she was not worked 
in the plough or the hay waggon more than eighteen or nineteen hours a 
day. This milk was very sweet and good, and of a beautiful transparent 
"bluish tint ; but in order to get cream from it in the most economical way, a 
peculiar process was necessary. Now he believed that the habit of the 




GREAT HEIDELBERG TUX. 



ancients was to collect several milkings in a teacup, pour it into the Great 
Tun, fill up with water, and then skim off the cream from time to time as 
the needs of the German Empire demanded. 

This began to look reasonable. It certainly began to account for the 
German cream which I had encountered and marvelled over in so many 
hotels and restaurants. But a thought struck me — 

' Why did not each ancient dairyman take his own teacup of milk and 
his own cask of water, and mix them, without making a government matter 
of it ? ' 



APPENDIX B. 631 

1 Where could he get a cask large enough to contain the light pro- 
portion of water ? ' 

1 Very true.' It was plain that the Englishman had studied the matter 
from all sides. Still I thought I might catch him on one point ; so I 
asked him why the modern empire did not make the nation's cream in 
the Heidelberg Tun, instead of leaving it to rot away unused. But he 
answered as one prepared — 

' A patient and diligent examination of the modern German cream has 
satisfied me that they do not use the Great Tun now, because they have got 
a bigger one hidden away somewhere. Either that is the case, or they 
-empty the spring milkings into the mountain torrents, and then skim the 
Khine all summer.' 

There is a museum of antiquities in the Castle, and among its most 
treasured relics are ancient manuscripts connected with German history. 
There are hundreds of these, and their dates stretch back through many 
centuries. One of them is a decree signed and sealed by the hand of a 
successor of Charlemagne in the year 896. A signature made by a hand 
which vanished out of this- life near a thousand years ago is a more 
impressive thing than even a ruined castle. Luther's wedding-ring was 
shown me; also a fork belonging to a time anterior to our era, and an early 
bootjack. And there was a plaster cast of the head of a man who was 
assassinated about sixty years ago. The stab-wounds in the face were 
duplicated with unpleasant fidelity. One or two real hairs still remained 
sticking in the eyebrows of the cast. That trifle seemed to almost 
change the counterfeit into a corpse. 

There are many aged portraits — some valuable, some worthless ; some 
of great interest, some of none at all. I bought a couple — one a gorgeous 
duke of the olden time, and the other a comely blue-eyed damsel, a princess, 
may be. I bought them to start a portrait gallery of my ancestors with. 
I paid a dollar and a half for the duke, and two and a half for the princess. 
One can lay in ancestors at even cheaper rates than these, in Europe 
if he will mouse among old picture shops, and look out for chances. 



mm2 



APPENDIX C. 

THE COLLEGE PRLSON. 

It seems ih.nl the student may break a good many of the public laws without 
having to answer to the public authorities. His case must come before the 
University for trial and punishment. If a policeman catches him in an 
unlawful act and proceeds to arrest him, the offender proclaims that he 
is a student, and perhaps shows his matriculation card, whereupon the 
officer asks for his address, then goes his way, and reports the matter at 
headquarters. If the offence is one over which the city has no jurisdic- 
tion, the authorities report the case officially to the University, and give 
themselves no further concern about it. The University court send for the 
student, listen to the evidence, and pronounce judgment. The punishment 
usually inflicted is imprisonment in the University prison. As I under- 
stand it, a student's case is often tried without his being present at all. 
Then something like this happens : A constable in the service of the Uni- 
versity visits the lodgings of the said student, knocks, is invited to come 
in, does so, and says politely— 

'If you please, I am here to conduct you to prison.' 

' Ah,' says the student, ' I was not expecting it. What have I been 

doing ? ' 

k Two weeks ago the public peace had the honour to be disturbed by 

you.' 

< It is true ; I had forgotten it. Very well ; I have been complained 
of, tried, and found guilty- -is that it ? ' 

' Exactly. You are sentenced to two days' solitary confinement in the 
college prison, and I am sent to fetch you. 

Student. ' Oh, I can't go to-day ! ' 

Officer. l If you please— why ? ' 

Student. < Because I've got an engagement.' 

Officer. i To-morrow, then, perhaps ? ' 

Student. ' No, I am going to the opera to-morrow/ 



APPENDIX C. 533 

Officer. ' Could you come Friday ? ' 

Student. (Reflectively.) ' Let nie see— Friday— Friday. I don't seem to 
have anything on hand Friday.' 

Office?'. * Then, if you please, I will expect you on Friday.' 
Student. * All right, I'll come around Friday.' 
Officer. * Thank you. Good day, sir.' 
Student. ' Good day.' 

So on Friday the student goes to the prison of his own accord, and is 
admitted. 

It is questionable if the world's criminal history can show a custom 
more odd than this. Nohody knows, now, how it originated. There have 
always "been many noblemen among the students, and it is presumed that all 
students are gentlemen ; in the old times it was usual to mar the con- 
venience of such folk as little as possible ; perhaps this indulgent custom 
owes its origin to this. 

One day I was listening to some conversation upon this subject, when 
an American student said that for some time he had been under sentence for 
a slight breach of the peace and had promised the constable that he would 
presently find an unoccupied day and betake himself to prison. I asked the 
young gentleman to do me the kindness to go to jail as soon as he con- 
veniently could, so that I might try to get in there and visit him, and see 
what college-captivity was like. He said he would appoint the very first 
day he could spare. 

His confinement was to endure twenty- four hours. He shortly chose 
his day, and sent me word. I started immediately. When I reached the 
University Place, 1 saw two gentlemen talking together, and as they had 
portfolios under their arms I judged they were tutors or elderly students; so 
I asked them in English to show me the college jail. I had learned 
to take it for granted that anybody in Germany who knows anything 
knows English, so I had stopped afflicting people with my German. These 
gentlemen seemed a trifle amused — and a trifle confused, too — but one of 
them said he would walk around the corner with me and show me the place. 
He asked me why I wanted to get in there, and I said, to see a friend — and 
for curiosity. He doubted if I would be admitted, but volunteered to put 
in a word or two for me with the custodian. 

He rang the bell, a door opened, and we stepped into a paved way and 
then into a small living-room, where we were received by a hearty and good- 
natured German woman of fifty. She threw up her hands with a surprised 
* Ach Gott, Herr Professor ! ' and exhibited a mighty deference for my new 
acquaintance. By the sparkle in her eye I judged she was a good deal 
amused, too. The ' Herr Professor ' talked to her in German, and I under- 
stood enough of it to know that he was bringing very plausible reasons to 
bear for admitting me. They were successful. So the Herr Professor 



534 



A TRA3IP ABROAD. 



received my earnest thanks and departed. The old dame got her keys,, 
took me up two or three flights of stairs, unlocked a door, and we stood in. 
the presence of the criminal. Then she went into a jolly and eager descrip- 
tion of all that had occurred downstairs, and what the Herr Professor had 
said, and so forth and so on. Plainly she regarded it as quite a superior joke- 
that I had waylaid a Professor and employed him in so odd a service. 
But I wouldn't have done it if I had known he was a Professor ; there- 
fore my conscience was not disturbed. 

Now the dame left us to ourselves. The cell was not a roomy one ; still 
it was a little larger than an ordinary prison cell. It had a window of 
good size, iron-grated ; a small stove ; two wooden chairs ; two oaken tables,, 
very old and most elaborately carved with names, mottoes, faces, armorial 
bearings, etc. — the work of several generations of imprisoned students \ 
and a narrow wooden bedstead with a villanous old straw mattress, but no 

sheets, pillows, blankets or coverlets- 
— for these the student mutst furnish 
at his own cost if he wants them. 
There was no carpet, of course. 
The ceiling was completely covered 
with names, dates, and monograms, 
done with candle- smoke. The walls 
were thickly covered with pictures 
and portraits (in profile), some done 
with ink, some with soot, some with 
a pencil, and some with red, blue, 
and green chalks ; and wherever an 
inch or two of space had remained 
between the pictures, the captives 
had written plaintive verses, or 
names and dates. I do not think I 
was ever in a more elaborately 
frescoed apartment. 

Against the wall hung a placard 
containing the prison laws. I made 
a note of one or two of these. For 
instance: The prisoner must pay, 
for the 'privilege' of entering, a 
sum equivalent to 20 cents of our 
bismaeck in prison. money; for the privilege of leav- 

ing, when his term has expired, 20 cents ; for every day spent in the prison, 
12 cents ; for fire and light, 12 cents a day. The jailor furnishes coffee, 
mornings, for a small sum; dinners and suppers may be ordered from 
outside if the prisoner chooses — and he is allowed to pay for them, too. 




APPENDIX C. 535 

Here arid there, on the walls, appeared the names of American students, 
and in one place the American arms and motto were displayed in coloured 
chalks. 

With the help of my friend I translated many of the inscriptions. Some 
of them were cheerful, others the reverse. I will give the reader a few 
specimens : — 

1 In my tenth semestre (my best one), I am cast here through the com- 
plaints of others. Let those who follow me take warning.' 

1 III Tage ohne Grund angeblich aus Neugierde.' Which is to say, 
he had a curiosity to know what prison-life was like ; so he made a breach 
in some law and got three days for it. It is more than likely that he 
never had the same curiosity again. 

(Translation.) ' E. Glinicke, four days for being too eager a spectator of 
a row.' 

<F. Graf Bismarck— 27-29, II, '74.' Which means that Count 
Bismarck, son of the great statesman, was a prisoner two days in 1874. 

{Translation.) ( R. Diergandt — for Love — four days.' Many people 
in this world have caught it heavier than that for the same indiscretion. 

This one is terse. I translate — 

' Four weeks for misinterpreted gallantry? 

I wish the sufferer had explained a little more fully. A four weeks' 
term is a rather serious matter. 

There were many uncomplimentary references, on the walls, to a certain 
unpopular college dignitary. One sufferer had got three days for not saluting 
him. Another had ' here two days slept and three nights lain awake/ on 
account of this same * Dr. K.' In one place was a picture of Dr. K. hang- 
ing on a gallows. 

Here and there, lonesome prisoners had eased the heavy time by altering 
the records left by predecessors. Leaving the name standing, and the date 
and length of the captivity, they had erased the description of the mis- 
demeanour, and written in its place, in staring capitals, 'for theft!' or 
' for murder ! ' or some other gaudy crime. In one place, all by itself, stood 
this blood-curdling word — 

'Rache!' 1 

There was no name signed, and no date. It was an inscription well 
calculated to pique curiosity. One would greatly like to know the nature 
of the wrong that had been done, and what sort of vengeance was wanted, and 
whether the prisoner ever achieved it or not. But there was no way of 
rinding out these things. 

Occasionally a name was followed simply by the remark, ' II days, for 
disturbing the peace/ and without comment upon the justice or injustice 
of the sentence. 

1 ' Revenge.' 



536 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

In one place was a hilarious picture of a student of the green-cap corps 
with a bottle of champagne in each hand; and below was the legend: 
• These make an evil fate endurable.' 

There were two prison cells, and neither had space left on walls or ceiling 
for another name or portrait or picture. ' The inside surfaces of the two 
doors were completely covered with cartes de visite of former prisoners, 
ingeniously let into the wood and protected from dirt and injury by glass. 

I very much wanted one of the sorry old tables which the prisoners 
had spent so many years in ornamenting with their pocket knives, but red 
tape was in the way. The custodian could not sell one without an order 
from a superior ; and that superior would have to get it from his superior ; 
and this one would have to get it from a higher one — and so on up and up 
until the faculty should sit on the matter and deliver final judgment. 
The system was right, and nobody could find fault with it; but it did 
not seem justifiable to bother so many people, so I proceeded no further. 
It might have cost me more than I could afford, anyway ; for one of those 
prison tables, which was at that time in a private museum in Heidelberg, 
was afterwards sold at auction for two hundred and fifty dollars. It was 
not worth more than a dollar, or possibly a dollar and a half, before the 
captive students began their work on it. Persons who saw it at the auction 
said it was so curiously and wonderfully carved that it was worth the 
money that was paid for it. 

Among the many who have tasted the college prison's dreary hospitality 
was a lively young fellow from one of the Southern States of America, whose 
first year's experience of Gerrnin university life was rather peculiar. The 
day he arrived in Heidelberg he enrolled his name on the college books, 
and was so elated with the fact that his dearest hope had found fruition 
and he was actually a student of the old and renowned university, that he 
set to work that very night to celebrate the event by a grand lark in 
company with some other students. In the course of his lark he managed 
to make a wide breach in one of the university's most stringent laws. 
Sequel: before noon, next day, he was in the college prison — booked 
for three months. The twelve long weeks dragged slowly by, and the 
day of deliverance came at last. A great crowd of sympathising fellow- 
students received him with a rousing demonstration as he came forth, and of 
course there was another grand lark — in the course of which he managed 
to make a wide breach in one of the city 8 most stringent laws. Sequel : 
before noon, next day, he was safe in the city lock-up — booked for three 
months. This second tedious captivity drew to an end in the course of 
time, and again a great crowd of sympathising fellow-students gave him a 
rousing reception as he came forth ; but his delight in his freedom was so 
boundless that he could not proceed soberly and calmly, but must go 
hopping and skipping and jumping down the sleety street from sheer excess 



APPENDIX C. 



537 



of joy. Sequel : he slipped and broke Lis leg, and actually lay in the 
hospital during the next three months ! 

When he at last became a free man again, he said he believed he would 
hunt up a brisker seat of learning ; the Heidelberg lectures might be good, 
but the opportunities of attending them were too rare, the educational 
process too slow ; he said he had come to Europe with the idea that the 
acquirement of an education was only a matter of time, but if he had 
averaged the Heidelberg system correctly, it was rather a matter of eternity. 




ON THE MOUNTAINS. 



APPENDIX D. 

THE AWFUL GERMAN LANGUAGE. 

A little learning makes the whole world kin. — Proverbs xxxii. 7. 

[ went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg Castle,, 
md one day I surprised the keeper of it with rny German. I spoke entirely 
in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I had talked awhile 
he said my German was very rare, possibly a ' unique ; ' and wanted to add 
it to his museum. 

If he had known what it had cost me to acquire my art, he would 
also have known that it would break any collector to buy it. Harris and 
I had been hard at work on our German during several weeks at that time,, 
and although we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under 
-Teat difficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the 
meantime. A person who has not studied German can form no idea what 
a perplexing language it is. 

Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, 
;u 1 so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed about in it, hither 
aud hither, in the most helpless way ; and when at last he thinks he has- 
captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid the general 
rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over the page and 
reads, ' Let the pupil make careful note of the following exceptions? He 
runs his eye down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule 
than instances of it. So overboard he goes again, to hunt for another Ararat 
and find another quicksand. Such has been, and continues to be, my 
experience. Every time I think I have got one of these four confusing 
' cases ' where I am master of it, a seemingly insignificant preposition in- 
trudes itself into my sentence, clothed with an awful and unsuspected power, 
and crumbles the ground from under me. For instance, my book inquires 
after a certain bird — (it is always inquiring after things which are of no sort 
of consequence to anybody) : 'Where is the bird ? ' Now the answer to this 



APPENDIX D. 53& 

question — according to the book — is that the bird is waiting in the black- 
smith shop on account of the rain. Of course no bird would do that, but 
then you must stick to the book. Very well, I begin to cipher out the 
German for that answer. I begin at the wrong end, necessarily, for that 
is the German idea. I say to myself, ' Rcgen (rain) is masculine — or maybe 
it is feminine — or possibly neuter — it is too much trouble to look, now. 
Therefore, it is either der (the) Regen, or die (the) Regen, or das (the) 
Regen, according to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. In 
the interest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is 
masculine. Very well — then the rain is der Regen, if it is simply in the quies- 
cent state of being mentioned, without enlargement or discussion — Nomi- 
native case ; but if this rain is lying around, in a kind of a general way 
on the ground, it is then definitely located, it is doing something — that is f 
resting (which is one of the German grammar's ideas of doing something), 
and this throws the rain into the Dative case, and makes it dent Regen. 
However, this rain is not resting, but is doing something actively — it i» 
falling — to interfere with the bird, likely — and this indicates movement — 
which has the effect of sliding it into the Accusative case and changing dem 
Regen into den Regen.' Having completed the grammatical horoscope of 
this matter, I answer up confidently and state in German that the bird is 
staying in the blacksmith shop ' wegen (on account of) den Regen.' Then 
the teacher lets me softly down with the remark that whenever the word 
' wegen' drops into a sentence, it always throws that subject into the 
Genitive case, regardless of consequences — and that therefore this bird stayed 
in the blacksmith shop ' wegen des Regens.' 

N.B. — I was informed, later, by a higher authority, that there was an 
1 exception ' which permits one to say ' wegen den Regen' in certain peculiar 
and complex circumstances, but that this exception is not extended to any- 
thing but rain. 

There are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. An average 
sentence in a German newspaper is a sublime and impressive curiosity ; it 
occupies a quarter of a column ; it contains all the ten parts of speech — not 
in regular order, but mixed ; it is built mainly of compound words con- 
structed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary — 
six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam — that is r 
without hyphens ; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each 
enclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses 
which re-enclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making pens within 
pens; finally, all the parentheses and re-parentheses are massed together 
between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first 
line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it 
— after which comes the verb, and you find out for the first time what the 
man has been talking about; and after the verb — merely by way of ornament, 



510 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

as far as I can make out — the writer shovels in ' haben sind geivesen gehcibt 
haben geiuorden sein] or words to that effect, and the monument is finished. 
I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the nature of the flourish to a 
man's signature — not necessary, but pretty. German hooks are easy enough 
to read when you hold them before the looking-glass or stand on your head — 
so as to reverse the construction — but I think that to learn to read and under- 
stand a German newspaper is a thing which must always remain an impossi- 
bility to a foreigner. 

Yet even the German books are not entirely free from attacks of the 
Parenthesis distemper — though they are usually so mild as to cover only 
a few lines, and therefore when you at last get down to the verb it carries 
some meaning to your mind because you are able to remember a good deal 
of what has gone before. 

Now here is a sentence from a popular and excellent German novel — 
with a slight parenthesis in it. I will make a perfectly literal translation, 
and throw in the parenthesis-marks and some hyphens for the assistance 
of the reader — though in the original there are no parenthesis-marks or 
hyphens, and the reader is left to flounder through to the remote verb the 
best way he can : — 

' But when he, upon the street, the (in-satin-and-silk-covered-now-very- 
unconstrainedly-after-the-newest-fashion-dressed) government counsellor's 
wife met] etc., etc. 1 

That is from ' The Old Mamselle's Secret,' by Mrs. Marlitt. And that; 
sentence is constructed upon the most approved German model. You 
observe how far that verb is from the reader's base of operations ; well, in a 
German newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page ; and 
I have heard that sometimes after stringing along on exciting preliminaries 
and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry and have to go 
to press without getting to the verb at all. Of course, then, the reader is 
left in a very exhausted and ignorant state. 

We have the Parenthesis disease in our literature, too ; and one may 
see cases of it every day in our books and newspapers ; but with us it is the 
mark and sign of an unpractised writer or a cloudy intellect, whereas with 
the Germans it is doubtless the mark and sign of a practised pen and of 
the presence of that sort of luminous intellectual fog which stands for 
clearness among these people. For surely it is not clearness — it necessarily 
can't be clearness. Even a jury would have penetration enough to discover 
that. A writer's ideas must be a good deal confused, a good deal out of 
line and sequence, when he starts out to say that a man met a counsellor's 
wife in the street, and then right in the midst of this so simple undertaking 

1 Wenn er aber auf der Strasse der in Samnit und Seide gehiillten jetz 
sehr ungenirt nacb der neusten mode gekleideten Kegierungsrathin begegnet.' 



APPENDIX D. 541 

halts these approaching people and makes them standstill until he jots down 
an inventory of the woman's dress. That is manifestly absurd. It reminds- 
a person of those dentists who secure your instant and breathless interest in 
a tooth by taking a grip on it with the forceps, and then stand there and 
drawl through a tedious anecdote before they give the dreaded jerk. Paren- 
theses in literature and dentistry are in bad taste. 

The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by 
splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting 
chapter and the other half at the end of it. Can anyone conceive of any- 
thing more confusing than that ? These things are called l separable verbs.' 
The German grammar is blistered all over with separable verbs ; and the 
wider the two portions of one of them are spread apart, the better the author 
of the crime is pleased with his performance. A favourite one is reiste ab, 
which means departed. Here is an example which I culled from a novel 
and reduced to English : — 

1 The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother and 
sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, 
dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds 
of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from 
the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor 
aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more 
dearly than life itself, PARTED.' 

However, it is not well to dwell too much on the separable verbs. One 
1 is sure to lose his temper early ; and if he sticks to the subject, and will not 
be warned, it will at last either soften his brain or petrify it. Personal 
pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this language, and should 
have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it 
means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it 
means them. Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make 
one word do the work of six — and a poor little weak thing of only three 
letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing 
which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains 
why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a 
stranger. 

Now observe the Adjective. Here was a case where simplicity would 
have been an advantage ; therefore, for no other reason, the inventor of this 
language complicated it all he could. When we wish to speak of our l good 
friend or friends,' in our enlightened tongue, we stick to the one form and 
have no trouble or hard feeling about it ; but with the German tongue it 
is different. When a German gets his hands on an adjective, he declines 
it, and keeps on declining it until the common sense is all declined out of it. 
It is as bad as Latin. He says, for instance : — 



M2 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

SINGULAR. 

Nominative — Mein guter Freund, my good friend. 
Genitive — Meines guten Freundes, of my good friend. 
Dative — Meinew guten Freund, to my good friend. 
Accusative — Meinen guten Freund, my good friend. 

PLURAL. 

N. — Meine guten Freunde, my good friends. 
G. — Meiner gutew Freunde, of my good friends. 
D. — Meinew guten Freundew, to my good friends. 
A. — Meine guten Freunde, my good friends. 

Now let the candidate for the asylum try to memorise those variations, 
and see how soon he will be elected. One might better go without friends in 
Germany than take all this trouble about them. I have shown what a bother 
it is to decline a good (male) friend ; well, this is only a third of the work, 
for there is a variety of new distortions of the adjective to be learned when 
the object is feminine, and still another when the object is neuter. Now 
there are more adjectives in this language than there are black cats in 
Switzerland, and they must all be as elaborately declined as the examples 
above suggested. Difficult ? — troublesome ? — these words caunot describe it. 
I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, 
that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective. 

The inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure in complicating 
it in every way he could think of. For instance, if one is casually referring 
to a house, Haus, or a horse, Pferd, or a dog, Hund, he spells these words as 
I have indicated ; but if he is referring to them in the Dative case, he sticks 
on a foolish and unnecessary e and spells them Hause, Pferde, Hunde. So, 
as an added e often signifies the plural, as the s does with us, the new student 
is likely to go on for a month making twins out of a Dative dog before he 
discovers his mistake ; and on the other hand, many a new student who 
.could ill afford loss, has bought and paid for two dogs and only got one of 
them, because he ignorantly bought that dog in the Dative singular when he 
really supposed he was talking plural— which left the law on the seller's 
•side, of course, by the strict rules of grammar, and therefore a suit for 
recovery could not lie. 

In German, all the Nouns begin with a capital letter. Now that is a 
good idea ; and a good idea in this language is necessarily conspicuous from 
its lonesomeness. I consider this capitalising of nouns a good idea, because 
by reason of it you are almost always able to tell a noun the minute you 
see it. You fall into error occasionally, because you mistake the name of 
a person for the name of a thing, and waste a good deal of time trying to dig 
a meaning out of it. German names almost always do mean something, and 
Shis helps to deceive the student. I translated a passage one day, which 



APPENDIX U. 543 

.said that ' the infuriated tigress broke loose and utterly ate up the unfortu- 
nate fir-forest' (Tannenivald). When I was girding up my loins to doubt 
this, I found out that Tannenwald, in this instance, was a man's name. 

Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distri- 
bution ; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. 
There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memo- 
randum book. In German a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. 
Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, aud what 
■callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print. I translate this 
from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school 
books : — 

Gretchen. l Wilhelni, where is the turnip ? ' 
Wilhelm. ' She has gone to the kitchen.' 

Gretchen. ' Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden ? ' 
Wilhelm. ' It has gone to the opera.' 

To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, 
its leaves are neuter ; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female — 
Tom-cats included, of course ; a person's mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, 
nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter 
according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of 
the individual who wears it — for in Germany all the women wear either 
male heads or sexless ones ; a person's nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, 
hips, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, 
knees, heart, and conscience haven't any sex at all. The inventor of the 
language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay. 

Now, by the above dissection, the reader will see that in Germany a man 
may think he is a man, but i when he comes to look into the matter closely 
he is bound to have his doubts ; he finds that in sober truth he is a most 
ridiculous mixture ; and if he ends by trying to comfort himself with the 
thought that he can at least depend on a third of this mess as being manly 
and masculine, the humiliating second thought will quickly remind him that 
in this respect he is no better oft than any woman or cow in the land. 

In the German it is true that, by some oversight of the inventor of the 
language, a Woman is a female, but a Wife (Weib) is not — which is unfortu- 
nate. A Wife here has no sex ; she is neuter ; so, according to the grammar, 
;a fish is he, hia scales are she, but a fish-wife is neither. To describe a 
wife as sexless may be called under-description ; that is bad enough, but 
over-description is surely worse. A German speaks of an Englishman as the 
Encjl'dnder ; to change the sex he adds inn, and that stands for Englishwoman 
— Engldnderinn. lhat seems descriptive enough, but still it is not exact 
enough for a German ; so he precedes the word with that article which 
indicates that the creature to follow is feminine, and writes it down thus : 
' die Englanderwm ' — which means ' the she-En glishicoman.' 1 I consider that 
that person is over-described. 



644 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

Well, after the student has learned the sex of a great number ofnouns* 
he is still in a difficulty, because he finds it impossible to persuade his tongue 
to refer to things as l he ' and l she," 1 and * him ' and ' her] which it has been 
always accustomed to refer to as ' it. 1 When he even frames a German sen- 
tence in his mind, with the hini3 and hers in the right places, and then works 
up his courage to the utterance point, it is no use — the moment he begins to 
speak his tongue flies the track, and all those laboured males and females 
come out as ' its.' And even when he is reading German to himself he always- 
calls those things i it] whereas he ought to read in this way : — 

Tale of the Fishwife and Its Sad Fate. 1 

It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he 
rattles ; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and oh, the Mud, how deep- 
he is ! Ah, the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire ; it has dropped 
its Basket of Fishes ; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized 
some of the falling Creatures ; and one Scale has even got into its Eye, and' 
it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry for Help, but if any Sound 
comes out of him, alas ! he is drowned by the raging of the Storm. And 
now a Tomcat has got one of the Fiahes, and she will surely escape with him. 
No; she bites off a Fin, she holds her in her Mouth — will she swallow her ?' 
No the Fishwife's brave Mother-Dog deserts his Puppies and rescues the 
Fin ; which he eats himself as his Reward. horror ; the Lightning has 
struck the Fishbasket ! he sets him on Fire ! See the Flame, how she licks 
the doomed Utensil with her red and angry Tongue! Now she attacks the 
helpless Fishwife's Foot— she burns him up all but the big Toe, and even 
she is partly consumed ; and still she spreads, still she waves her fiery tongues ! 
She attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys it ; she attacks its Hand and 
destroys her ; she attacks its poor worn Garment and destroys her also ; she 
attacks its Body and consumes him ; she wreathes herself about its Heart 
and it is consumed ; next about its Breast and in a Moment she is a Cinder; 
now she reaches its Neck — he goes ; now its Chin — it goes ; now its Nose — 
she goes. In another moment, except Help come, the Fishwife will be no 
more! Time presses — is there none to succour and save ? Yes! Joy, joy ! 
with flying Feet the she-Englishwoman comes ! But alas ! the generous 
she-Female is too late ! Where now is the fated Fishwife ? It has ceased 
.■roin its Sufferings ; it has gone to a better Land ; all that is left of it for 
its loved Ones to lament over is this poor smouldering Ash-heap. Ah, 
wof ul, woful Ash-heap ! Let us take him up tenderly, revereutly, upon the 
lowly Shovel, and bear him to his long Rest, with the Prayer that when 
he rises again it will be in a Realm where he will have one good square 

* I capitalise the nouns,, in the German (and ancient English) fashion. 



APPENDIX D. 545 

responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of having a mangy lot of 
assorted Sexes scattered a]l over him in Spots. 

There, now, the reader can see for himself that this pronoun-business is 
a very awkward thing for the unaccustomed tongue. 

I suppose that in all languages the similarities of look and sound between 
words which have no similarity in meaning are a fruitful source of perplexity 
to the foreigner. It is so in our tongue, and it is notably the case in the 
German. Now there is that troublesome word vermahlt : to me it has so 
close a resemblance — either real or fancied — to three or four other words, 
that I never know whether it means despised, painted, suspected, or married, 
until I look in the dictionary, and then I find it means the latter. There are 
lots of such words, and they are a great torment. To increase the difficulty 
there are words which seem to resemble each other, and yet do not ; but 
they make just as much trouble as if they did. For instance, there is the 
word vermiethen (to let, to lease, to hire), and the word verheirathen (another 
way of saying to marry). I heard of an Englishman who knocked at a 
man's door in Heidelberg and proposed, in the best German he could command, 
to ' verheirathen ' that house. Then there are some words which mean one 
thing when you emphasise the first syllable, but mean something very 
different if you throw the emphasis on the last syllable. For instance, there 
is a word which means a runaway, or the act of glancing through a book, 
according to the placing of the emphasis ; and another word which signifies 
to associate with a man, or to avoid him, according to where you put the 
emphasis — and you can generally depend on putting it in the wrong place 
and getting into trouble. 

There are some exceedingly useful words in this language : Schlag, for 
example, and Zug. There are three-quarters of a column of Schlags in 
the dictionary, and a column and a half of Zugs. The word Schlag means 
Blow, Stroke, Dash, Hit, Shock, Clap, Slap, Time, Bar, Coin, Stamp, Kind, 
Sort, Manner, Way, Apoplexy, Wood-cutting, Enclosure, Field, For&st- 
clearing. This is its simple and exact meaning — that is to say, its restricted, 
its fettered meaning ; but there are ways by which you can set it free, so 
that it can soar away, as on the wings of the morning, and never be at rest. 
You can hang any word you please to its tail, and make it mean anything 
you want to. You can begin with Schlag-ader, which means artery, and 
you can hang on the whole dictionary, word by word, clear through the 
alphabet, to Schlag-wasser, which means bilge-water, and including Schlag- 
mutter, which means mother-in-law. 

Just the same with Zug. Strictly speaking, Zug means Pull, Tug, 
Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, 
Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, 
Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer > 

N N 



516 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition ; but that thing which it does not mean, 
when all its legitimate pendants have been hung on, has not been discovered yet. 

One cannot over-estimate the usefulness of Schlag and Zug, Armed 
just with these two, and the word Also, what cannot the foreigner on 
German soil accomplish ? The German word Also is the equivalent of the 
English phrase ' You know,' and does not mean anything at all — in talk, 
though it sometimes does in print. Every time a German opens his mouth 
an Also falls out ; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was- 
trying to get out. 

Now, the foreigner, equipped with these three noble words, is master 
of the situation. Let him talk right along, fearlessly; let him pour his 
indifferent German forth, and when he lacks for a word, let him heave a 
Schlag into the vacuum : all the chances are, that it fits it like a plug ; but 
if it doesn't, let him promptly heave a Zug after it ; the two together can 
hardly fail to bung the hole ; but if, by a miracle, they should fail, let him 
simply say Also ! and this will give him a moment's chance to think of the 
needful word. In Germany when you load your conversational gun it is 
always best to throw in a Schlag or two and a Zug or two ; because it 
doesn't make any difference how much the rest of the charge may scatter, 
you are bound to bag something with them. Then you blandly say Also, 
and load up again. Nothing gives such an air of grace and elegance and 
unconstraint to a German or an English conversation as to scatter it full of 
1 Also's ' or ' You knows.' 

In my note-book I find this entry : — 

July 1. — In the hospital, yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was 
successfully removed from a patient — a North-German from near Hamburg ; 
but as most unfortunately the surgeons had opened him in the wrong place, 
under the impression that he contained a panorama, he died. The sad event 
has cast a gloom over the whole community. 

That paragraph furnishes a text for a few remarks about one of the 
most curious and notable features of my subject — the length of German 
words. Some German words are so long that they have a perspective. 
Observe these examples : — 

Freundschaftsbezeigungen. 

Dilletantenaufdringlichkeiten. 

Stadtverordnetenversammlungen. 

These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they 
are not rare ; one can open a German newspaper any time and see them 
marching majestically across the page — and if he has any imagination he 
can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial thrill 
to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in these curiosities. When- 
ever I come across a good one, I stuff it and put it in my museum. In 



APPENDIX D. 



647 



this way I have made quite a valuable collection. When I get duplicates, J 
exchange with other collectors, and thus increase the variety of my stock. 
Here are some specimens which I lately bought at an auction sale of the 
effects of a bankrupt bric-a-brac hunter : — 

Generalstaatsverordnetenversammltjngen. 

Alterthtjmswissexschafiex. 

KlKDERBEWAHRTJXGSANSTALTEtf. 

Unabhaengigkeitserklaertjngen-. 

WlEDERHERSTELLUffGSBESTREBTTNGEN. 

"Waepensttllstandsunterhandlungen. 

Of course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching across 
the printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape — but at the 
same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks up his way ; 
he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it, or tunnel through it. So he 




A COMPLETE WORD. 



resorts to the dictionary for help ; but there is no help there. The dictionary 
must draw the line somewhere — so it leaves this sort of words out. And it 
is right, because these long things are hardly legitimate words, but are 
rather combinations of words, and the inventor of them ought to have 
been killed. They are compound words, with the hyphens left out. The 
various words used in building them are in the dictionary, but in a very 
scattered condition so you can hunt the materials out, one by one, and get 
at the meaning at last, but it is a tedious and harassing business. I have 
tried this process upon some of the above examples. ' Freundschaftsbezei- 
gungen ' seems to be ' Friendshipdemonstrations,' which is only a foolish and 
clumsy way of saying ' demonstrations of friendship.' ' Unabhaengigkeitser- 
klaerungen ' seems to be ' Independencedeclarations,' which is no improve- 
ment upon ' Declarations of Independence,' as far as I can see. ' General- 
staatsverordnetenversammlungen ' seems to be ' Generalstatesrepresentatives- 
meetin'gs,' as nearly as I can get at it — a mere rhythmical, gushy euphuism 

NN 2 



548 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

for ' meetings of the legislature/ I j udge. We used to have a good deal of 
this sort of crime in our literature, but it has gone out now. We used to 
speak of a tning as a 'never-to-he-forgotten ' circumstance, instead of cramp- 
ing it into the simple and sufficient word 'memorable,' and then going 
calmly about our business as if nothing had happened. In those days we 
were not content to embalm the thing and bury it decently, we wanted to 
build a monument over it. 

But in our newspapers the compounding-disease lingers a little to the 
present day, but with the hyphens left out, in the German fashion. This is 
the shape it takes : instead of saying ' Mr. Simmons, clerk of the county 
and district courts, was in town yesterday/ the new form puts it thus: 
' Clerk of the County and District Court Simmons was in town yesterday.' 
This saves neither time nor ink, and has an awkward sound besides. One 
often sees a remark like this in our papers : f Mrs. Assistant District Attorney 
Johnson returned to her city residence yesterday for the season.' That is 
a case of really unjustifiable compounding ; because it not only saves no time 
or trouble, but confers a title on Mrs. Johnson which she has no right to. 
But these little instances are trifles indeed, contrasted with the ponderous 
and dismal German system of piling jumbled compounds together. I wish 
to submit the following local item, from a Mannheim journal, by way of 
illustration : — 

'In the daybeforeyesterdayshortlyaftereleveno 'clock Night, the inthis- 
townstandingtavern called " The Waggoner " was downburnt. When the 
fire to the onthedownburninghouseresting Stork's Nest reached, flew the 
parent Storks away. But when the bytheraging, firesurrounded Nest itself 
caught Fire, straightway plunged the quickreturning Mother-Stork into the 
Flames and died, her Wings over her young ones outspread.' 

Even the cumbersome German construction is not able to take the pathos 
out of that picture — indeed it somehow seems to strengthen it. This item 
is dated away back yonder months ago. I could have used it sooner, but I 
was waiting to hear from the Father-Stork. I am still waiting. 

' Also ! ' If I have not shown that the German is a difficult language, I 
have at least intended to do it. I have heard of an American student who 
was asked how he was getting along with his German, and who answered 
promptly : ' I am not getting along at all. I have worked at it hard for 
three level months, and all I have got to show for it is one solitary German 
phrase — " Zwei glas " ' (two glasses of beer). He paused a moment, reflec- 
tively, then added with feeling, ' But I have got that solid ! ' 

And if I have not also shown that German is a harassing and infuriating 
study, my execution has been at fault, and not my intent. I heard lately 
of a worn and sorely tried American student who used to fly to a certain 
German word for relief when he could bear up under his aggravations no 
longer — the only word in the whole language whose sound was sweet and 



APPENDIX D. 549 

precious to his ear and healing to his lacerated spirit. This was the word 
Damit. It was only the sound that helped him, not the meaning ; 1 and so, 
at last, when he learned that the emphasis was not on the first syllable, 
his only stay and support was gone, and he faded away and died. 

I think that a description of any loud, stirring, tumultuous episode must 
be tamer in German than in English. Our descriptive words of this character 
have such a deep, strong, resonant sound, while their German equivalents 
do seem so thin and mild and energyless. Boom, burst, crash, roar, storm, 
bellow, blow, thunder, explosion ; howl, cry, shout, yell, groan ; battle, hell. 
These are magnificent words ; they have a force and magnitude of sound 
befitting the things which they describe. But their German equivalents 
would be ever so nice to sing the children to sleep with, or else my awe- 
inspiring ears were made for display and not for superior usefulness in 
analysing sounds. Would any man want to die in a battle which was called 
by so tame a term as a Schlacht ? Or would not a consumptive feel too 
much bundled up, who was about to go out, in a shirt collar and a seal ring, 
into a storm which the bird-song word Gewitter was employed to describe? 
And observe the strongest of the several German equivalents for explosion — 
Ausbruch. Our word Toothbrush is more powerful than that. It seems to 
me that the Germans could do worse than import it into their language to 
describe particularly tremendous explosions with. The German word for 
hell — Holle — sounds more like helly than anything else; therefore, how 
necessarily chipper, frivolous, and unimpressive it is. If a man were told in 
German to go there, could he really rise to the dignity of feeling insulted ? 

Having now pointed out, in detail, the several vices of this language, I 
now come to the brief and pleasant task of pointing out its virtues. The 
capitalising of the nouns I have already mentioned. But far before this 
virtue stands another — that of spelling a word according to the sound of it. 
After one short lesson in the alphabet, the student can tell how any German 
word is pronounced, without having to ask ; whereas in our language if a 
student should inquire of us ' What does B, 0, W, spell ? ' we should be 
obliged to reply, ' Nobody can tell what it spells, when you set it off by itself 
— you can only tell by referring to the context and finding out what it sig- 
nifies — whether it is a thing to shoot arrows with, or a nod of one's head, 
or the forward end of a boat.' 

There are some German words which are singularly and powerfully 
effective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and affec- 
tionate home life ; those which deal with love, in any and all forms, from 
mere kindly feeling and honest good will toward the passing stranger, 
clear up to courtship ; those which deal with outdoor Nature, in its softest 
and loveliest aspects — with meadows and forests, and birds and flowers, the 

1 It merely means, in its general sense, ' herewith.'' 



550 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the moonlight of peaceful winter 
nights ; in a word, those which deal with any and all forms of rest, repose, 
and peace ; those also which deal with the creatures and marvels of fairy- 
land ; and lastly and chiefly, in those words which express pathos, is the 
language surpassingly rich and effective. There are German songs which 
can make a stranger to the language cry. That shows that the sound of 
the words is correct — it interprets the meanings with truth and with exact- 
ness ; and so the ear is informed, and through the ear. the heart. 

The Germans do not seem to be afraid to repeat a word when it is the 
right one. They repeat it several times, if they choose. That is wise. 
But in English when we have used a word a couple of times in a paragraph, 
we imagine we are growing tautological, and so we are weak enough to 
exchange it for some other word which only approximates exactness, to 
escape what we wrongly fancy is a greater blemish. Repetition may be bad, 
but surely inexactness is worse. 

There are people in the world who will take a great deal of trouble 
to point out the faults in a religion or a language, and then go blandly 
about their business without suggesting any remedy. I am not that kind of a 
person. I have shown that the German language needs reforming. Very 
well, I am ready to reform it. At least I am ready to make the proper sug- 
gestions. Such a course as this might be immodest in another ; but I have 
devoted upwards of nine full weeks, first and last, to a careful and critical 
study of this tongue, and thus have acquired a confidence in my ability to 
reform it which no mere superficial culture could have conferred upon me. 

In the first place, I would leave out the Dative Case. It confuses the 
plurals ; and besides, nobody ever knows when he is in the Dative Case, 
except he discover it by accident — and then he does not know when or 
where it was that he got into it, or how long he has been in it, or how he is 
ever going to get out of it again. The Dative Case is but an ornamental 
folly — it is better to discard it. 

In the next place, I would move the Verb further up to the front. You 
may load up with ever so good a Verb, but I notice that you never really 
bring down a subject with it at the present German range — you only cripple 
it. So I insist that this important part of speech should be brought forward 
to a position where it may be easily seen with the naked eye. 

Thirdly, I would import some strong words from the English tongue — 
to swear with, and also to use in describing all sorts of vigorous things in a 
vigorous way. 1 

1 ' Verdammt,'' and its variations and enlargements, are words which have 
plenty of meaning, but the sounds are so mild and ineffectual that German 
ladies can use them without sin. German ladies who could not be induced 
to commit a sin by any persuasion or compulsion, promptly rip out one of 



APPENDIX D. 551 

Fourthly, I would reorganise the sexes, and distribute them according to 
the will of the Creator. This as a tribute of respect, if nothing else. 

Fifthly, I would do away with those great long conipouuded words ; or 
require the speaker to deliver them in sections, with intermissions for refresh- 
ments. To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas are more 
easily received and digested when they come one at a time than when they 
come in bulk. Intellectual food is like any other ; it is pleasanter and more 
beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel. 

Sixthly, I would require a speaker to stop when he is done, and not 
hang a string of those useless ' haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden 
seins' to the end of his oration. This sort of gew-gaws undignify a speech, 
instead of adding a grace. They are therefore an offence, and should be 
discarded. 

Seventhly, I would discard the Parenthesis. Also the re-Parenthesis, 
the ie-re-parenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-re-parentheses, and likewise the 
finil wide-reaching all-enclosing King-parenthesis. I would require every 
individual, be he high or low, to unfold a plain straightforward tale, or 
else coil it and sit on it and hold his peace. Infractions of this law should 
be punishable with death. 

And eighthly and lastly, I would retain Zug and ScJdag, with their 
pendants, and discard the rest of the vocabulary. This would simplify the 
language. 

I have now named what I regard as the most necessary and important 
changes. These are perhaps all I could be expected to name for nothing ; 
but there are other suggestions which I can and will make in case my 
proposed application shall result in my being formally employed by the 
government in the work of reforming the language. 

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought 
to learn English (barring spelling and pronoimcing) in 30 hours, French in 
30 days, and German in 30 years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter 
tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, 
it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, 
for only the dead have time to learn it. 



these harmless little words when they tear their dresses or don't like the soup. 
It sounds about as wicked as our ' My gracious ! ' German ladies are con- 
stantly saying, « Ach ! Gott ! ' * Mein Gott ! ' ' Gott in Himmel ! ' 4 Herr 
Gott I ' ' Der Herr Jesus ! ' etc. They think our ladies have the same custom 
perhaps, for I once heard a gentle and lovely old German lady say to a sweet 
young: American girl, ' The two languages are so alike — how pleasant that 
is ; we say, " Ach ! Gott ! " you say, " Goddam." ' 



552 A TRAMP ABROAD. 



A Fourth of July Oration or the German Tongue, delivered at a 

BANQUET OF THE ANGLO- AMERICAN CLUB OF STUDENTS BY THE AUTHOR 
OF THIS BOOK. 

Gentlemen: Since I arrived, a month ago, in this old wonderland , 
this vast garden of Germany, my English tongue has so often proved a 
useless piece of baggage to me, and so troublesome to carry around, in a 
country where they haven't the checking system for luggage, that I finally 
set to work, last week, and learned the German language. Also ! Es freut 
mich dass dies so ist, denn es muss, in ein hauptsachlich degree, hoflich sein, 
dass man auf ein occasion like this, sein Rede in die Sprache des Landes 
worin he boards, aussprechen soil. Dafiir habe ich, aus reinische Verlegenheit 
— no, Vergangenheit — no, I mean Hoflichkeit — aus reinische HMichkeit 
habe ich resolved to tackle this business in the German language, um Gottes 
willen ! Also ! Sie miissen so freundlich sein, und verzeih mich die inter- 
larding von ein oder zwei Englischer Worte, hie und da, denn ich finde 
dass die deutche is not a very copious language, and so when you've really 
got anything to say, you've got to draw on a language that can stand the 
strain. 

"Wenn aber man kann nicht meinem Rede verstehen, so werde ich ihm 
spater dasselbe iibersetz, wenn er solche Dienst verlangen wollen haben 
werden sollen sein hatte. (I don't know what wollen haben werden sollen 
sein hatte means, but I notice they always put it at the end of a German 
sentence — merely for general literary gorgeousness, I suppose.) 

This is a great and justly honoured day — a day which is worthy of the 
veneration in which it is held by the true patriots of all climes and nation- 
alities — a day which offers a fruitful theme for thought and speech ; und 
meinem Freunde — no, meinew Freunden — meines Freundes — well, take your 
choice, they're all the same price; I don't know which one is right — also! 
ich habe gehabt haben worden gewesen sein, as Goethe says, in his Paradise 
Lost — ich — ich — that is to say — ich — but let us change cars. 

Also ! Die Anblick so viele Grossbrittanischer und Amerikanischer 
hier zusammengetroffen in Bruderliche concord, ist zwar a welcome and 
inspiriting spectacle. And what has moved you to it ? Can the terse Ger- 
man tongue rise to the expression of this impulse ? Is it Freundschafts- 
bezeigungenstadtverordnetenversammlungenfamilieneigenthiimlich k e i t e m P 
Nein, o nein ! This is a crisp und noble word, but it fails to pierce the 
marrow of the impulse which has gathered this friendly meeting and pro- 
duced diese Anblick — eine Anblick welche ist gut zu sehen — gut fur die 
Augen in a foreign land and a far country — eine Anblick solche als in die 
gewonliche Heidelberger phrase nennt man ein ' schones Aussicht ! ' Ja, 
freilich naturlich wahrscheinlich ebensowohl ! Also ! Die Aussicht auf dem 



APPENDIX D. £53 

Konigstuhl mehr grosserer ist, aber geistlische sprechend nicht so schon, 
lob' Gott ! Because sie sind hier zusamniengetroffen, in Bruderlicliem con- 
cord, ein grossen Tag zu feiern, whose high benefits were not for one land 
and one locality only, but have conferred a measure of good upon all lands 
that know liberty to-day, and love it. Hundert Jahre voriiber, waren die 
Englander und die Amerikaner Feinde ; aber heute sind sie herzlichen 
Freunde, Gott sei Dank! May this good fellowship endure; may these 
banners here blended in amity, so remain ; may they never any more wave 
over opposing hosts, or be stained with blood which was kindred, is kindred, 
and always will be kindred, until a line drawn upon a map shall be able to 
say, ' 
dant! : 



APPEjSTDIX E. 



LEGEND GF THE CASTLES 

CALLED THE ' SWALLOW'S NEST' AND ' TEE BROTHERS,' AS CONDENSED FROM 
THE CAPTAIN'S TALE. 

In the neighbourhood of three hundred years ago the Swallow's Nest and 
the larger castle between it and Neckarsteinach were owned and occupied by- 
two old knights who were twin brothers, and bachelors. They had no 
relatives. They were very rich. They had fought through the wars and 
retired to private life — covered with honourable scars. They were honest, 
honourable men in their dealings, but the people had given them a couple 
of nicknames which were very suggestive — Herr Givenaught and Herr 
Heartless. The old knights were so proud of these names that if a burgher 
called them by their right ones they would correct him. 

The most renowned scholar in Europe, at that time, was the Herr Doctor 
Franz Reikmann, who lived in Heidelberg. All Germany was proud of 
the venerable scholar, who lived in the simplest way, for great scholars are 
always poor. He was poor, as to money, but very rich in his sweet young 
daughter Hildegarde and his library. He had been all his life collecting 
his library, book by book, and he loved it as a miser loves his hoarded gold. 
He said the two strings of his heart were rooted, the one in his daughter, 
the other in his books ; and that if either were severed he must die. Now 
in an evil hour, hoping to win a marriage portion for his child, this simple 
old man had entrusted his small savings to a sharper to be ventured in a 
glittering speculation. But that was not the worst of it : he signed a paper 
— without reading it. That is the way with poets and scholars, they always 
sign without reading. This cunning paper made him responsible for heaps 
of things. The result was, that one night he found himself in debt to the 
sharper eight thousand pieces of gold ! — an amount so prodigious that it 
simply stupefied him to think of it. It was a night of woe in that house. 

' I must part with my library — I have nothing else. So perishes one 
heartstring,' said the old man. 

' What will it bring, father ? ' asked the girl. 



APPENDIX E. 555 

( Nothing ! It is worth seven hundred pieces of gold ; but by auction 
it will go for little or nothing.' 

' Then you will have parted with the half of your heart and the joy of 
your life to no purpose, since so mighty a burden of debt will remain 
behind.' 

' There is no help for it, my child. Our darlings must pass under the 
hammer. We must pay what we can.' 

1 My father, I have a feeling that the dear Virgin will come to our help. 
Let us not lose heart.' 

' She cannot devise a miracle that will turn nothing into eight thousand 
gold pieces, and lesser help will bring us little peace.' 

1 She can do even greater things, my father. She will save us, I know 
she will.' 

Toward morning, while the old man sat exhausted and asleep in his 
•chair where he had been sitting before his books as one who watcher 
by his beloved dead and prints the features on his memory for a solace in 
the aftertime of empty desolation, his daughter sprang into the room and 
gently woke him, saying — 

' My presentiment was true ! She will save us. Three times has she 
appeared to me in my dreams, and said, " Go to the Herr Givenaught, go 
to the Herr Heartless, ask them to come and bid." There, did I not tell 
you she would save us, the thrice blessed Virgin ! ' 

Sad as the old man was, he was obliged to laugh. 

' Thou mightest as well appeal to the rocks their castles stand upon 
as to the harder ones that lie in those men's breasts, my child. They bid 
on books writ in the learned tongues ! — they can scarce read their own.' 

But Hildegarde's faith was in no wise shaken. Bright and early she 
was on her way up the Neckar road, as joyous as a bird. 

Meantime Herr Givenaught and Herr Heartless were having an early 
breakfast in the former's castle — the Sparrow's Nest — and flavouring it 
with a quarrel ; for although these twins bore a love for each other which 
almost amounted to worship, there was one subject upon which they could 
not touch without calling each other hard names — and yet it was the 
subject which they oftenest touched upon. 

' I tell you,' said Givenaught, ' you will beggar yourself yet, with your 
insane squanderings of money upon what you choose to consider poor and 
worthy objects. All these years I have implored you to stop this foolish 
custom and husband your means, but all in vain. You are always lying 
to me about these eecret benevolences, but you never have managed to 
deceive me yet. Every time a poor devil has been set upon his feet I have 
detected your hand in it — incorrigible ass ! ' 

* Every time you didn't set him on his feet yourself, you mean. Where 
I give one unfortunate a little private lift, you do the same for a dozen. 



556 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

The idea of your swelling around the country and petting yourself -with 
the nickname of Givenaught — intolerable humbug! Before I would be 
such a fraud as that, I would cut my right hand off. Your life is a continual 
lie. But go on, I have tried my best to save you from beggaring yourself 
by your riotous charities — now for the thousandth time I wash my hands 
of the consequences. A maundering old fool ! that's what you are.' 

1 And you a blethering old idiot ! ' roared Givenaught, springing up. 

' I won't stay in the presence of a man who has no more delicacy than 
to call me such names. Mannerless swine ! ' 

So saying, Herr Heartless sprang up, in a passion. But some luckv 
accident intervened, as usual, to change the subject, and the daily quarrel 
ended in the customary daily loving reconciliation. The grey-headed olu 
eccentrics parted, and Herr Heartless walked off to his own castle. 

Half an hour later, Hildegarde was standing in the presence of Herr 
Givenaught. He heard her story, and said : — 

' I am sorry for you, my child, but I am very poor ; I care nothing for 
bookish rubbish, I shall not be there.' 

He said the hard words kindly, but they nearly broke poor Hildegarde's 
heart, nevertheless. When she was gone the old heart-breaker muttered, 
rubbing his hands, — 

' It was a good stroke. I have saved my brother's pocket this time- 
in spite of him. Nothing else would have prevented his rushing off" to 
rescue the old scholar, the pride of Germany, from his troubles. The poor 
child won't venture near him after the rebuff she has received from his brother, 
the Givenaught.' 

But he was mistaken. The Virgin had commanded, and Hildegarde 
would obey. She went to Herr Heartless and told her story. But he said 
coldly, — 

' I am very poor, my child, and books are nothing to me. I wish yo 1 " 
well, but I shall not come.' 

When Hildegarde was gone, he chuckled and said, — 

' How my fool of a soft-headed soft-hearted brother would rage if 1 
knew how cunningly I have saved his pocket. How he would have Aotv 
to the old man's rescue ! But the girl won't venture near him now.' 

When Hildegarde reached home, her father asked her how she had 
prospered. She said, — 

1 The Virgin has promised, and she will keep her word ; but not in tin 
way I thought. She knows her own ways, and they are best.' 

The old man patted her on the head, and smiled a doubting smile, but h 
honoured her for hei brave faith, nevertheless. 






APPENDIX E. 657 



II. 



Next day the people assembled in the great hall of the Ritter tavern, 
to witness the auction — for the proprietor had said the treasure of Germany's 
most honoured • son should be bartered away in no meaner place. Hil- 
degarde and her father sat close to the books, silent and sorrowful, and 
holding each other's hands. There was a great crowd of people present. 
The bidding began : — 

1 How much for this precious library, just as it stands, all complete? ' 
called the auctioneer. 

' Fifty pieces of gold ! ' 

' A hundred ! ' 

1 Two hundred ! ' 

< Three ! ' 

* Four ! ' 

* Five hundred ! ' 

4 Five twenty-five ! ' 

A brief pause. 

1 Five forty ! ' 

A longer pause, while the auctioneer redoubled his persuasions. 

' Five forty-five ! ' 

A heavy drag — the auctioneer persuaded, pleaded, implored — it was 
useless, everybody remained silent : — 

' Well, then — going, going — one — two — ' 

' Five hundred and fifty ! ' 

This in a shrill voice, from a bent old man, all hung with rags, and 
with a green patch over his left eye. Everybody in his vicinity turned 
and gazed at him. It was Givenaught in disguise. He was using a 
isguised voice, too. 

' Good ! ' cried the auctioneer. ' Going, going — one — two,' 

1 Five hundred and sixty ! ' 

This in a deep harsh voice, from the midst of the crowd at the other 

ad of the room. The people near by turned, and saw an old man, in a 

strange costume, supporting himself on crutches. He wore a long white 

beard, and blue spectacles. It was Herr Heartless, in disguise, and using 

i disguised voice. 

' Good again ! Going, going — one — ' 

' Six hundred ! ' 

Sensation. The crowd raised a cheer, and some one cried out, 'Go 
, Green-patch!' This tickled the audience and a score of voices shouted, 
3o it, Green-patch ! ' 

' Going — going — going — third and last call — one, two — 



558 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

1 Seven hundred ! ' 

' Huzzah ! — well done, Crutches ! ' cried a voice. The crowd took it up, 
and shouted all together, ' Well done, Crutches ! ' 

' Splendid, gentlemen ! you are doing magnificently. Going, going — ' 

' A thousand ! ' 

' Three cheers for Green-patch ! Up and at him, Crutches ! ' 

* Going — going — ' 

* Two thousand ! ' 

And while the people cheered and shouted, ' Crutches ' muttered, ' Who 
can this devil he, that is fighting so to get these useless hooks? — But no 
matter, he shan't have them. The pride of Germany shall have his books 
if it beggars me to buy them for him.' 

'Going, going, going— ' 

1 Three thousand ! ' 

' Come, everybody — give a rouser for Green-patch ! ' 

And while they did it, Green-patch muttered, ( This cripple is plainly 
a lunatic ; but the old scholar shall have his books, nevertheless^ though my 
pocket sweat for it.' 

* Going — going — ' 
' Four thousand ! ' 
« Huzza ! ' 

' Five thousand ! ' 

1 Huzza ! ' 

' Six thousand ! ' 

< Huzza ! ' 

' Seven thousand ! ' 

* Huzza ! ' 

' Eight thousand ! ' 

' We are saved, father ! I told you the Holy Virgin would keep her 
word ! ' l Blessed be her sacred name ! ' said the old scholar, with emotion 
The crowd roared, ' Huzza, huzza, huzza — at him again Green-patch ! ' 

' Going — going — ' 

' Ten thousand ! ' As Givenaught shouted this, his excitement was so 
great that he forgot himself and used his natural voice. His brother 
recognised it, and muttered, under cover of the storm of cheers — 

' Aha, you are there, are you, besotted old fool ? Take the books, I know 
what you'll do with them.' 

So saying, he slipped out of the place, and the auction was at an end. 
Givenaught shouldered his way to Hildegarde, whispered a word in her 
ear, and then he, also, vanished. The old scholar and his daughter embraced, 
and the former said, ' Truly the Holy Mother has done more than she 
promised, child, for she has given you a splendid marriage portion — think of 
it, two thousand pieces of gold ! ' 



APPENDIX E. 55i> 

'And more still/ cried Hildegarde, 'for she has given you back your 
books; the stranger whispered me that he would none of them— "the 
honoured son of Germany must keep them," so he said. I would I might 
have asked his name and kissed his hand and begged his blessing ; but he 
was Our Lady's angel, and it is not meet that we of earth should venture 
speech with them that dwell above.' 



APPENDIX F. 



GERJIAN JOURNALS. 



The daily journals of Hamburg, Frankfort, Baden, Munich, and Augsburg7 : . 
are all constructed on the same general plan. I speak of these "because I 
am more familiar with them than with any other German papers. They : 
contain no ' editorials ' whatever ; no ' personals ' — and this is rather a 
merit than a demerit, perhaps; no funny-paragraph column; no police 1 
court reports ; no reports of proceedings of higher courts ; no information 
about prize fights or other dog fights, horse races, walking matches, yacht--' 
ing contests, rifle matches, or other sporting matters of any sort ; no report- 
of banquet speeches : no department of curious odds and ends of floating- 
fact and gossip : no ' rumours ' about anything or anybody ; no prognostica- 
tions or prophecies about anything or anybody ; no lists of patents grantee 1 
or sought, or any reference to such things ; no abuse of public officials, 
big or little, or complaints against them, or praises of them ; no religious 
column Saturdays, no re-hash of cold sermons Mondays ; no ' weather 
indications:' no 'local item' unveiiings of what is happening in town—, 
nothing of a local nature, indeed, is mentioned, beyond the movements of 
some prince or the proposed meeting of some deliberative body. 

After so formidable a list of what one can't find in a German dailv 
the question may well be asked, What can be found in it ? It is easil 
answered : A child's handful of telegrams, mainly about European nation 
and international political movements; letter-correspondence about th 
same things ; market reports. There you have it. That is what a Germr 
daily is made of. A German daily is the slowest and saddest and drearies., 
of the inventions of man. Our own dailies infuriate the reader pretty 
often : the German daily only stupefies him. Once a week the German 
daily of the highest class lightens up its heavy columns — that is, it think. c 
it lightens them up — with a profound, an abysmal, book criticism; a •> 
criticism which carries you down, down, down, into the scientific bowels : 
of the subject — for the German critic is nothing if not scientific — and wheD 



APPENDIX F. 561 

you come up at last and scent the fresh air and see the bonny daylight once 

re, you resolve without a dissenting voice that a hook-criticism is a 

■■taken way to lighten up a German daily. Sometimes, in place of 

criticism, the first-class daily gives you what it thinks is a gay and 

)per essay — about ancient Grecian funeral customs, or the ancient 

I ^ptian method of tarring a mummy, or the reasons for believing that 

e of the peoples who existed before the flood did not approve of cats. 

se are not unpleasant subjects; they are not uninteresting subjects; 

f are even exciting subjects — until one of these massive scientists gets 

d of them. He soon convinces you that even these matters can be 

died in such a way as to make a person low-spirited. 

As I have said, the average German daily is made up solely of cor- 

, spondence — a trifle of it by telegraph, the rest of it by mail. Every 

paragraph has the side-head, ' London,' ' Vienna,' or some other town, and 

i date. And always, before the name of the town, is placed a letter or a 

^gn, to indicate who the correspondent is, so that the authorities can find 

aim when they want to hang him. Stars, crosses, triangles, squares, 

'aalf-moons, suns — such are some of the signs used by correspondents. 

Some of the dailies move too fast, others too slowly. For instance, 
my Heidelberg daily was always twenty-four hours old when it arrived at 
tho hotel ; but one of my Munich evening papers used to come a full 
.wenty-four hours before it was due. 

Some of the less important dailies give one a tablespoonful of a continued 
tory every day ; it is strung across the bottom of the page, in the French 
bshion. By subscribing for the paper for live years I judge that a man 
•night succeed in getting pretty much all of the story. 

If you ask a citizen of Munich which is the best Munich daily journal 
le will always tell you that there is only one good Munich daily, and that 
: t is published in Augsburg, forty or fifty miles away. It is like saying that 
he best daily paper in New York is published out in New Jersey some- 
'here. Yes, the Augsburg ' Allgemeine Zeitung ' is ' the best Munich 
iper,' and it is the one I had in my mind when I was describing a ' first- 
ass German daily ' above. The entire paper, opened out, is not quite as 
-rge as a single page of the ' New York Herald.' It is printed on both 
des of course ; but in such large type that its entire contents could be 
t ut, in ' Herald' type, upon a single page of the ' Herald' — and there 
would still be room enough on the page for the ' Zeitung's ' Supplement and 
some portion of the ' Zeitung's ' next day's contents. 

Such is the first-class daily. The dailies actually printed in Munich 
ire all called second-class by the public. If you ask which is the best of 
these second-class papers they say there is no difference, one is as good as 
another. I have preserved a copy of one of them ; it is called the ' Munchener 
Tages-Anzeiger,' and bears date January 25, 1879. Comparisons are 

o o 

L 



662 A TRAMP ABROAD. 

odious, but they need not be malicious ; and without any malice I wish to 
compare this journal, published in a German city of 170,000 inhabitants, 
with journals of other countries. I know of no other way to enable the reader 
to ' size ' the thing. 

A column of an average daily paper in America contains from 1,800 
to 2,500 words ; the reading matter in a single issue consists of from 25,000 
to 50,000 words. The reading matter in my copy of the Munich journal 
consists of a total of 1,654 words— for I counted them. That would be 
nearly a column of one of our dailies. A single issue of the bulkiest daily 
newspaper in the world — the London ' Times ' — often contains 100,000 words 
of reading matter. Considering that the ' Daily Anzeiger ' issues the usual 
twenty-six numbers per month, the reading matter in a single number 
of the London ' Times ' would keep it in ' copy ' two months and a half ! 

The ' Anzeiger ' is an eight-page paper : its page is one inch wider and 
one inch longer than a foolscap page ; that is to say, the dimensions of its- 
page are somewhere between those of a schoolboy's slate and a lady's 
pocket-handkerchief. One fourth of the first page is taken up with the 
heading of the journal ; this gives it a rather topheavy appearance 5 the 
rest of the first page is reading matter ; all of the second page is reading 
matter ; the other six pages are devoted to advertisements. 

The reading matter is compressed into two hundred and five small-pica 
lines, and is lighted up with eight pica nead-lines. The bill of fare is as 
follows : First, under a pica head-line to enforce attention and respect, is 
a four-line sermon urging mankind to remember that although they are 
pilgrims here below, they are yet heirs of heaven ; and that ' When they 
depart from earth they soar to heaven.' Perhaps a four-line sermon in a 
Saturday paper is tfce sufficient German equivalent of the eight or ten 
columns of sermons which the New Yorkers get in their Monday morning 
papers. The latest news (two days old) follows the four-line sermon, under 
the pica head-line ' Telegrams ' — these are ' telegraphed ' with a pair of 
scissors out of the ' Augsburger Zeitung ' of the day before. These telegrams 
consist of fourteen and two-thirds lines from Berlin, fifteen lines from 
Vienna, and two and five-eighths lines from Calcutta. Thirty-three small 
pica lines of telegraphic news in a daily journal in a King's Capital of 
170,000 inhabitants, is surely not an overdose,, Next, we have the pica head- 
ing, ' News of the Day,' under which the following facts are set forth : 
Prince Leopold is going on a visit to Vienna, six lines ; Prince Arnulpk is 
coming back from Russia, two lines ; the Landtag will met at ten o'clock in 
the morning and consider an election law, three lines and one word over : 
a city government item, five and one half lines : prices of tickets to the 
proposed grand Charity Ball, twenty-three lines — for this one item occupies 
almost one fourth of the entire first page ; there is to be a wonderful Wagner 
concert in Frankfurt-on-the-Main, with an orchestra of one hundred and 
eight instruments, seven and one half lines. That concludes the first page. 



* • ■ I 

APPENDIX Bi Vi 563 

v 1 
Eighty-five lines altogether, on that page, including three head-lines. About 

fifty of those lines, as one perceives, deal with local matters ; so the reporters 

are not overworked. 

Exactly one half of the second page is occupied with an opera criticism, 
fifty-three lines (three of them "being head-lines), and ' Death Notices/ ten lines. 

The other half of the second page is made up of two paragraphs under 
the head of ' Miscellaneous News.' One of these paragraphs tells about a 
quarrel between the Czar of Russia and his eldest son, twenty-one and a 
half lines ; and the other tells about the atrocious destruction of a peasant 
child by its parents, forty hues, or one-fifth of the total of the reading matter 
contained in the paper. 

Consider what a fifth part of the reading matter of an American daily 
paper issued in a city of 170,000 inhabitants amounts to ; think what a mass 
it is. Would anyone suppose I could so snugly tuck away such a mass in 
a chapter of this book that it would be difficult to find it again if the reader 
lost his place ? Surely not. I will translate that child-murder word for 
word, to give the reader a realising sense of what a fifth part of the 
reading matter of a Munich daily actually is when it comes under measure- 
ment of the eye : — 

i From Oberkreuzberg, January 21, the "Donau Zeitung" receives a long 
account of a crime, which we shorten as follows : In Iiametuach, a village 
near* Eppenschlag, lived a young married couple with two children, one of 
which, a boy aged five, was born three years before the marriage. For 
this reason, and also because a relative at Iggensbach had bequeathed 400 
marks (100 dollars) to the boy, the heartless father considered him in the 
way ; so the unnatural" parents" determined to sacrifice him in the crudest 
possible manner. They proceeded to starve him slowly to death, meantime 
frightfully maltreating him — as the village people now make known, when 
it is too late. The boy was shut up in a hole, and when people passed by 
he cried, and implored them to give him bread. His long continued tortures 
and deprivations destroyed him at last, on the 3rd of January. The sudden 
{sic) death of the child created suspicion, the more so as the body was 
immediately clothed and laid upon the bier. Therefore, the coroner gave 
notice, and an inquest was held on the 6th. What a pitiful spectacle was 
disclosed then ! The body was a complete skeleton. The stomach and 
intestines were utterly empty — they contained nothing whatever. The 
flesh on the corpse was not as thick as the back of a knife, and incisions 
in it brought not a drop of blood. There was not a piece of sound skin the 
size of a dollar on the whole body; wounds, scars, bruises, discoloured 
extravasated blood, everywhere — even on the soles of the feet there were 
wounds. The cruel parents asserted that the boy had been so bad that they 
had been obliged to use severe punishments, and that he finally fell over a 
bench and broke his neck. However, they were arrested two weeks after 
the inquest, and put in the prison at Deggendorf.' 



564 



A TRAMP ABROAD. 



Yes, tliey were arrested ' two weeks after the inquest.' What a home- 
sound that has. That kind of police briskness rather more reminds me of 
my native land than German journalism does. 

I think a German daily journal doesn't do any good to speak of, but, at 
the same time, it doesn't do any harm. That is a very large merit, and 
should not be lightly weighed, nor lightly thought of. 

The German humorous papers are beautifully printed upon fine paper, 
and the illustrations are finely drawn, finely engraved, and are not vapidly 
funny, but deliriously so. So, also, generally speaking, are the two or 
three terse sentences which accompany the pictures. I remember one of 
these pictures — a most dilapidated tramp is ruefully contemplating some 
coins which lie in his open palm ; he says, ' Well, begging is getting played 
out. Only about 5 marks (1*25 dollars) for the whole day ; many an official 
makes more!' And I call to mind a picture of a commercial traveller, 
who is about to unroll his samples : — 

' Merchant (pettishly). No, don't. I don't want to buy anything. 

i Drummer. If you please, I was only going to show you — 

1 Merchant. But I don't wish to see them ! 

' Drummer (after a pause, pleadingly). But do you mind letting me look 
at them ? I haven't seen them for three weeks ! ' 




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